


Negima Star

by Hiddenkaos



Category: Lucky Star (Anime & Manga), Mahou Sensei Negima!
Genre: Crossover, Drama & Romance, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 21:30:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18786595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiddenkaos/pseuds/Hiddenkaos
Summary: When a mysterious item is discovered, events unfold that not even a certain otaku could imagine. Crossover Fanfiction between Lucky Star and Negima.





	1. Just Another Day

**Author's Note:**

> Note this is a Re-Upload Fic from FF.net I am porting over to here for various reasons. Other than updated Grammar/Spelling fixes, it is the same story as there. Horizontal lines represent shift in character perspective. The rest of the Start Notes are from the Original chapter 1, written in 2009.
> 
> First real attempt at a fanfic, I hope it turns out well. The idea came just because I thought of how Konata and Konoka sounded a lot alike. That little observation escalated into an idea for a fic involving my two favorite series. How well they really merge depends, I think, on how you do it. I hope my idea works.  
> Assume, for the sake of the story, that the ages of the Negima cast is around 3 years older than they are in the manga. Which means it takes place after ALL events in the manga (Excluding the Magical World Arc for various reasons). Also forgive any incorrect Honorifics because anytime I don't know how someone is addressed by someone else I kind of just make it up. I do know the important ones though.

The day started like any other. Or at least like any other Thursday for a certain trio in the Mahora Academy's Girls Dorm.

"GAH! I'm three hours late! Baka Negi! Why did you turn my alarm off? I know its summer, but some of us still have work to do." Asuna kicked Negi out of her bed, scrambled down to the floor, and rushed to get ready. Below her a barely awake Konoka smiled. _Business as usual_. She shook herself for a second and got up.

"Hey Negi-kun what would you like for breakfast?" Negi, who was getting up from the floor as Asuna rushed out the door clothes only mostly on, just smiled and said.

"Konoka-san doesn't have to make anything this early."

"Nonsense Negi-kun, you need to eat right. Here I'll make you some eggs." With that, she put on an apron and set about to cooking. She enjoyed cooking a lot, but today she had other things on her mind. I get to go shopping with Set-chan today! She looked at the calendar. This trip was gonna be special because the two of them would be alone the whole day, and she had been looking forward to it since they planned it last week. On cue, there was a knock at the door and Negi went to open it. A certain dark-haired swordswoman entered the room.

"Good morning Negi-sensei." As they walked back into the room, she approached Konoka, "Ojou-sama, I am here."

"Se-chan! You know I that I hate it when you call me that, don't be so formal."

"But Ojou-sama is Ojou-sama, it wouldn't be right for one such as me to..."

"Yeah yeah, would you like me to fix breakfast for you as well Set-chan? I'm already making it and it's as easy to cook for three as it is for two."

"I would like that Ojo-" She stopped with a look from Konoka, "K-Kono-chan." She finished with a slight blush. Konoka practically beamed at her.

"Alright then it'll be ready in just a couple minutes." After breakfast as Konoka washed the dishes, Negi and Setsuna sat talking while Konoka listened in.

"So Setsuna-san, what do you and Konoka-san have planned today?"

"Nothing that I'm aware of Negi-sensei, but if Ojou-sama wants to do something we will." Konoka was surprised and just a little bit hurt that Setsuna had so easily forgotten about their plans for the day, but she kept smiling so no one would notice. She had however stopped washing the dishes and stood there listening in.

Setsuna noticed something was wrong with Konoka and started to ask, but it suddenly went off in her head.

_Crap! Today was the day I was suppose to shopping with Kono-chan!_ She started blushing, and berated herself for forgetting and looked at Konoka.

"Oh that's right! We're going shopping today Negi-sensei." She smiled until she realized Konoka's smile had disappeared.

Konoka herself just stood there for a second lost in thought. She really did forget...No! It must just be that Set-chan is busy, it's not because she doesn't want to spend time with me. She shook her head and went back to washing dishes, but her smile wouldn't return, forced or not.

"What's wrong Ojou-sama?" Setsuna's voice, sounding worried, brought Konoka back to reality.

"N-Nothing Set-chan, I was just thinking about our trip today." _I'm not lying to Se-chan, I'm just not telling her everything.._ Konoka smiled again. "Just give me a couple minutes and I'll get ready to go OK?"

"Its alright Ojou-sama, take your time." Setsuna said, apparently convinced by Konoka's act. "Anyways Negi-sensei-" Konoka didn't hear much else as she finished the dishes and ran into the bathroom, presumably to get ready.

 

* * *

 

Elsewhere, in a place not so far away but at the same time to distant to travel, two purple haired twins were just leaving their house to visit a friend. One wore a slightly out of it face, the other a slightly aggravated one. The Hiiragi twins Kagami and Tsukasa were heading to the bus stop so they could get to their friend Konata's house to get her on their way to go shopping.

"Tsukasa how many times have I told you to not to stay up so late?"

"Sorry Onee-chan, but I was really into the manga I borrowed from Kona-chan."

"Tsukasa" Her sister jumped at her voice, "we both know you do that anyways, and so for once blaming it on Konata won't work."

Tsukasa blushed and took the arrival of their bus at the bus stop to change the subject away from her sleeping habits.

"Onee-chan the bus is here!" Tsukasa all but dived onto the bus leaving Kagami just standing there. _Nice job Tsukasa_. Kagami thought with a look of slight exasperation on her face that was almost not obvious... She got on the bus as well as it headed towards the house of a short blue haired otaku.

Konata Izumi, the otaku in question, was still asleep and oblivious to her friends approach. Upon their arrival and they were greeted by her father.

"Ah girls welcome, come in, Konata isn't awake yet, but I'm sure she'll get up now that your here." Tsukasa giggled a little bit.

"Hey Tsukasa," Kagami said hearing her sister, "Don't think just because you're not the only one who stays up late that it's OK." Tsukasa stopped smiling and her face went blank, and then turned red. Kagami smiled on the inside and walked down the hall towards Konata's bedroom.

At the door, Kagami stopped for a second. _If it was her she'd wake me up by staring over me until I get uncomfortable and wake up. I got it!_ Silently she mouthed for Tsukasa to stay outside and she opened the door. Konata's room was quiet except for Konata's random outbursts in her sleep.

Kagami thought she heard something about an ESPer but she wasn't really listening closely. She snuck over to Konata's bed and, stood there watching her for almost a minute. She found herself enjoying just watching Konata sleep. _What am I doing?_ She thought, suddenly uncomfortable with her thoughts. _I'm ruining my plan is what._ She started sucking in air.

She screamed loud enough it could be heard two houses away.

"Konata!" Tsukasa ran into the room thinking something was wrong, but there was no reaction at all from Konata. Suddenly Konata yelled almost as loud,

"Kagami-sama, stop yelling and come back to bed!" Kagami's face turned scarlet as Konata sat up, wide awake, and patted the bed beside her. _Stupid Konata, I can't even beat her when she's asleep_. All she said out loud though was:

"Shut up." Konata just hopped out of bed, ran over, and attempted to hug Kagami,

"But Kagamiiin why are you playing hard to get now. I know what you were doing."

Kagami's blush got deeper, "I was just checking to see if you were awake is all. I didn't watch you for that long."

Konata gave her a blank stare. _I meant the yelling, she was watching me?_ She recovered quickly though.

"Kagamin likes to watch other girls sleep doesn't she?" Tsukasa blushed hearing this, but Kagami's blush just disappeared anger replacing it.

"No, I don't, besides who would want to stare at an obsessive otaku like you anyways?" she turned away to walk out of the room, and to hide her face. Konata piped up.

"Well, you obviously." Kagami's look back made both her and Tsukasa stop smiling.

"Anyways Konata get ready cause we're suppose to go to the shopping district and get Tsukasa a new phone today remember." A light bulb went off next to Konata's head as she remembered and rushed to her closet to get dressed. As she was changing, Konata said

"There's also a new store opening up that I wanted to go check out, I heard about it from a customer at the cafe."

"Let me guess, it sells manga right?" Kagami sounded exasperated.

"No, he said it was supposed to be some sort of weird shop that sold unusual items and such and I wanted to see them." Konata's otaku mind was thinking maybe if she went, an event would trigger starting a chain of events that would lead to an adventure. Kagami just though it would kill some time.

"Alright Konata, we can go there after we get Tsukasa a new phone. And remind me to ask the phone people about phones that are waterproof." Tsukasa blushed; it was the second time she had dropped her phone in the bath trying to text while bathing.

They left the house at around 12:15 in the afternoon, and headed for the bus station.

 

* * *

 

"But Ojou-sama I don't need any more clothes." Setsuna complained for at least the fifth time since they had started shopping. It was around 12:30 and they had been at it since nine that morning. Already Setsuna's arms were laden with nearly 15 boxes and bags that Konoka had bought. All but two were new clothes for Setsuna. Konoka pouted at being called "Ojou-sama" again, but just said.

"Set-chan looks good in them, and your normal clothes are so boring." Konoka smiled as she picked up another outfit, this time it was a green sleeveless top with a matching skirt. Inside Konoka was smiling imagining Setsuna in all the clothes she had bought.

_Set-chan will look so pretty in them._ she mused as she turned to Setsuna with the outfit in her hands. Setsuna just sighed as she put down the boxes she carried. She knew by the look in Konoka's eyes she would be forced to try something on again and that fighting it wouldn't go anywhere. What she didn't realize is Konoka had picked out not one but two outfits, and that she was hiding the second behind the first.

*Some Time Later*

"Ojou-sama I refuse to come out wearing this! It's embarrassing!"

Konoka wasn't going to allow that, she went into the dressing room and pulled Setsuna out to get a better look at her.

_Ohh Set-chan looks wonderful!_ Setsuna was wearing a dark blue top that only came three fourths of the way down her torso leaving a good 4 inches of skin exposed at the bottom, as well as a skirt that didn't quite come down to her knees. Outwardly, she was absolutely gorgeous, but inwardly she wanted to crawl under a rock somewhere. Her face was a bright shade of red all the way to the hairline.

"You look great Set-chan!" Konoka said with huge smile on her face.

"B-b-but Ojou-sama, I-i can't go out like this in public, it's not rig-!" But Konoka had held up another outfit that made Setsuna almost relent to wearing this one forever. Her blush increased tenfold. "OJOU-SAMA!"

"Just kidding Set-chan." For now at least, she amended.

After Setsuna had changed back, Konoka bought both the blue and the green outfits. They headed outside.

"OH!" Konoka was once again sidetracked as she spotted her favorite kind of store, the kind that sold rare items. This one she had just recently discovered, also sold magical items if you knew to ask. "Come on Set-chan lets go in here." Setsuna could only smile and follow, grateful it wasn't another clothing store, but cautious since she knew sometimes dangerous things were sold here as well.

Inside it was rather small, but the desk clerk/owner told Setsuna that she'd watch their bags while they looked around, so as not to risk breaking anything. Setsuna handed her the bags then turned and almost burst out laughing and crying. Konoka was standing in the one section of the store that had clothes. They were mostly cloaks and hats, but Setsuna couldn't help but sigh as she joined Konoka. Suddenly Konoka squealed as she caught sight of a crystal ball and rushed over to it. Beneath it there was a sign that said:

Gateway to the Future.

DO NOT TOUCH Price:

35000 yen

Setsuna recognized the look in Konoka's eyes though and knew it was inevitable. Konoka's hands went out to touch it when the storekeeper suddenly shouted.

"Don't touch that! It's dangerous!" Instantly Setsuna reached out and grabbed Konoka's hand to pull it away. Instead Setsuna's hand touched the ball.

Nothing happened.

"I thought you said it was dangerous." Konoka said flatly, her voice almost sad that nothing happened.

"It is child, it is very dangerous, your friend is lucky, but that ball has powers, it draws souls from other worlds to ours and vice versa. I only have it on display because no one comes in here often and those that do have usually heard of it."

"Why is it called Gateway to the Future?" Setsuna asked.

"I'm not really sure to be honest, it's always been named that, perhaps it's because of some extra power that hasn't been discovered yet, and I certainly haven't messed with it. I bought it from a strange man a few years ago, he said he had come to this world through it, but couldn't get back home. I thought he was crazy but he only asked for 1500 yen. One time a man came in here to buy it, but when he picked it up he simply vanished."

Setsuna realized that through all this her hand was still on it, and jerked it away. Konoka however just stared at it. "I'll buy it." She said. The owner was speechless but Setsuna was in shock.

"Ojou-sama! I cannot approve of you buying such a dangerous item."

"Set-chan you don't have to approve but I will buy it, I want it." She took out her bag and began placing the money on the counter; it was no small amount at that.

_I didn't know Kono-chan walked around with that kind of money. Best never let anyone else see it or I may have trouble more often_. Setsuna just sat and watched as Konoka carefully placed a cloth around the ball and put it into a box. Then they began to leave the store. "I'm tired Se-chan lets go find a place to get something to eat and rest for a minute." _And maybe spend a bit of time just talking._

"As you wish Ojou-sama." Konoka just sighed. _I will find a way to get her to stop that somehow._ With that resolution, Konoka grabbed Setsuna's arm, nearly toppling her load of boxes as Setsuna went crimson and stiff as a board. She didn't resist it though, inside she was dancing, but she could never tell Kono-chan that. _She'll hate me if she knew how I really felt about her..._ ' Setsuna sighed, but Konoka was lost in her own thoughts and didn't notice.

* * *

 

"Honestly Tsukasa how can you like texting that much? And you better not be-" Suddenly Kagami's phone rang indicating she had a text message. "Tsukasa! Don't text someone who's right next to you!" Nevertheless, Tsukasa was lost in her own little world. Kagami could only sigh at her innocent but rather out there sister. Beside Kagami, Konata was chuckling and muttering something about Tsundere.

"What was that Konata!"

"Nothing Kagamin, I was just thinking about how you reminded me of-"

"That's all I need to hear Konata, just stop right there."

"Kagamiiin, don't be so mean. Ah!" Konata suddenly burst out. "We're here!"

And so they stood outside a small, rundown looking store. "Konata I thought you said it was new."

"Well that's what the customer said, and I've never seen it before so let's go in."

Sighing, Kagami followed her excitable little friend into the store. Tsukasa followed them both, but ran into the doorway because she wasn't really paying attention. She dropped her phone. It didn't break but she picked it up and kept texting for another minute or so.

Inside Konata was looking at a weird object on the wall that looked like a human lung and Kagami was walking down an isle that said "magic stuff" in gold letters over it. It contained stuff like wands and staffs and other "magical" items. She let her curiosity get to her as she picked up a small "wand" and began to flick it around. She felt silly, but it also was kinda fun to play sometimes.

She heard Konata yelp and there was a crash for the next isle over. She put the wand back and rushed around to find Konata buried under a large number of what looked to be mock spell books. Kagami muffled her laughter and went to dig Konata out.

"Kagami-sama! I was just trying to grab one, but it was stuck, so I pulled harder and then they all fell on me. It was like a sea of homework and I froze and then it landed on me and I was paralyzed for 15 seconds, but then you came along and cast a debuff and pulled them off me. "

"Don't say such weird things. And help me clean up this mess." Kagami picked up a book and was placing it on the shelf when she noticed a glint on the shelf behind where the books had been. 'What's this?' She wondered and grabbed the object. It was a small Crystal Ball, but she almost swore she saw someone's face in it for a second.

Konata's eyes lit up as she saw it. "OH! It's an event item! We found a secret hidden away; we have to buy it Kagamin! Who knows what it can do."

While not as convinced as her smaller easily excited friend, Kagami intended to buy the ball because she was drawn to it, she couldn't say why, but she just wanted it. Suddenly she was aware that they were standing in an isle with about 100 books lying all over the floor and they were both just staring at a ball.

"Konata we have to clean this up before we get caught!" She placed the ball on the rack behind her and they both began to clean up the mess. Elsewhere in the store, Tsukasa was engaged in a "conversation" with a talking fortuneteller machine. She knew it wasn't real, or at least she was fairly certain, but she was having fun getting her questions answered.

When they took it up to the stores checkout, both Konata and Kagami were shocked when the owner told them that he didn't sell crystal balls and didn't know where that had come from at all. He gave it to the for free and Konata just smiled, and mouthed event item towards Kagami, who just shook her head and collected her little sister.

 


	2. Fate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've tried to correct as many grammatical errors as possible, but I'll honestly say I've never studied English that well, even in high school, so don't expect perfection. I'm also still working out dialog writing, seeing as how I've never really done much of it except first person style. I suppose in a way this fic is almost a self-teaching lesson so I can get better with both my writing and my confidence in it.  
> I actually wrote chapters one and two at the same time, spent around 5 hours just typing, then went back and edited it all. But I've individually edited them. So here goes, hope you enjoy chapter 2.

That night they had planned a sleep over at the Izumi residence, which included their other friend Miyuki. Mostly the night went by as normal until Konata went to prepare dinner. Everyone else was in the living room watching some anime Konata picked out called Cla*nad, but no one was really paying much attention to the TV, and instead they were just talking.

Tsukasa, in one of her usual moments, asked

"Onee-chan, why is Kona-chan always interested anime and games so much."

Kagami was slightly impressed her sister was asking about something other than manga or anime herself. Maybe she's actually growing up..

"It's because she's Konata Tsukasa, that's just how she is. Konata without games or anime just isn't Konata." For a second she imagined Konata without any power or manga. She could just imagine her sleeping all day.. She felt bad for her in a way.

_I wish Konata would grow up a little though. She_ sighed _. But then again without her like she is, she wouldn't have the same charm...Wait! That's not right. Konata isn't charming she's just plain annoying._

She stood up and went to the kitchen. For some reason she wanted to confirm that, Konata was in fact the same annoying person she knew.

"Hey, Konata.." She said as she entered. Konata's back was to her and she was standing at the sink.

"Ey Kagami-sama!" Konata said in response. "Food will be ready in just a bit, but it's a surprise so don't look in the pot!"

_Konata's surprises have a way of being big problems_... While Konata was still at the sink, she snuck a peek into the pot and let out a loud yell.

"Konata WHAT IS THIS?" In it was what looked like a human hand.

Konata turned around holding a second pot, obviously the real dinner. She wore a huge smile.

"Kagami-sama doesn't trust me.." She feigned being hurt. To Kagami's realization, the hand in the pot was plastic. Konata had heard her coming.. _Darn you Konata, I am so getting you back for this. It was funny though..._

Later that night, while Konata was bathing, everyone else was in Konata's room. They were just sitting on the floor talking. The crystal ball they had gotten earlier that day was on a little table in the middle of them.

"Onee-chan what's taking Kona-chan so long?" Tsukasa asked again. Konata had been gone nearly an hour.

"She said she had to get something so we could perform a ritual tonight." Kagami sighed at remembering Konata's insistence that the ball was more than just a cheap piece of plastic. _She will never learn will she? Then she wouldn't be Konata anymore if she were anything else but weird._

Kagami was slightly put off by the fact that she knew that despite how Konata infuriated her, at the same time it wouldn't feel the same if she wasn't how she is.

"I'm back!" Konata announced bursting through the door dressed in a black robe and carrying a candle. She had three more robes over her shoulder. "Put these on!" she ordered and tossed them at the others. Tsukasa just began to put it on; Miyuki sat their confused for just a second before proceeding to put hers on as well. Kagami had other ideas.

"Konata, why on earth would we wear such ridiculous outfits? This entire thing is silly."

"Kagamin, we have to." Konoka pleaded and Kagami just sighed.

"Fine you win, but if a demon eats me or something I'll hurt you."

"Hai!"

They put them on and Konata put the candle next to the Crystal ball and started to chant something that sounded like it was from an anime she'd seen. _It's going to be a long night._ Kagami sighed again. As Konata got up and started, walking around them while continuing to chant Kagami corrected _A very long night..._

 

* * *

 

"Where did you get this Konoka-san?" Negi's voice was a mix of amazement and slightly shaking with fear. He could feel the energy coming from the crystal ball. "Hey, neesan how did you find such a rare magical item just going shopping?" Chamo, Negi's pet ermine, spoke up.

"We found it in a rare items store near the shopping district, I asked Ojou-sama not to buy it but..." She stopped feeling a stare from Konoka.

"But i wanted it Negi-kun! It's so shiny and the owner woman said it was magical so then I knew I had to have it. I hope you're not to mad Negi-kun."She was slightly worried at how Negi had reacted when her saw it, but hoped it was just Negi-kun being Negi-kun.

"The owner also said it was very dangerous she called it Gateway to the Future, does that mean anything to you Negi-sensei?" Setsuna asked while Konata went to the closest and began rummaging around for something.

"It's just looks like an ordinary crystal ball to me Konoka," Asuna said. "I don't know why you'd spend so much for it. It's probably just junk, right Negi?"

Negi had backed away from it when Setsuna had said its name; Chamo was hiding behind his leg.

"Konoka-san you shouldn't have bought this. If it really is Gateway to the Future then it is indeed a very powerful item, and having it here at Mahora is even more dangerous, because of all the magical energies being used around her. It could very well become active and I'm not sure what could happen if it-KONOKA-SAN!"

"OJOU-SAMA!" Konoka had taken out her wand and was trying to cast a spell on the ball. Asuna realizing the situation first, grabbed Konoka and tried to pull her away from it, but by then it was apparent that the ball was reacting to the energies in the room. Th ball began to pulse with a bluish light that filled the room, and then as it faded, sucked the light from the room entirely.

"Uh-oh" Everyone but Konoka said in unison. She was half sitting on Asuna, and while staring at the ball in amazement she stood up and began walking towards it again.. _Pretty_. She thought for just a second before realizing the situation as Chamo spoke up.

"Aniki, we need to get out of here before it activates!"

Setsuna was worried less about escape and more about Konoka. Setsuna ran towards Konoka, what she intended to do she wasn't sure, but before she could reach her, the room began to fill will a dense black smoke that made a terrible hissing sound. Setsuna last saw Konoka as her hand touched the Crystal. The room went pitch black as all the light in it was choked out.

"Ojou-sama!"

 

* * *

 

_Something is wrong._ Kagami thought as the Crystal ball before them began to glow slightly. She looked at Konata. _For all our sake, if she is doing this, I hope she knows what it is she's doing._

The ball began to glow and fade more violently then, no one was aware at first, until once when it faded and all the lights in the room went with it.

Tsukasa was just amazed and Miyuki sat there with her mouth slightly open, neither knew just what they were seeing. Konata, While continuing her little chant, had to admit that she was surprised to, she thought it would be fun to mess with Kagami a bit, but she hadn't actually expected the thing to react, she was just gonna scare Kagami at the right time by jumping on her. This was better though. It's a real event flag! OPTION 2: Continue chanting! And she did.

Kagami however had had enough. "Konata, I think you should stop." She got up and walked over to Konata.

"But Kagami, It's a real event!" The sound in Konata's voice as she said this made Kagami hesitate for just a second. That single second proved a bad decision .

Suddenly the room began to fill with a dark black smoke that blocked out senses, but it wasn't normal smoke, it wasn't toxic to breath, in fact, they didn't even start coughing, though Kagami did start to yell.

"Konata! When I can see again I'm going to..." Her voice was cut off by a strange hissing sound. She grabbed Konata and they both toppled over, knocking the candle off the stand, and causing the crystal to land in Konata's hand. Then everything in the room went a searing blinding white. Then everything was gone entirely.

 

* * *

 

As suddenly as it began, the smoke cleared. But at once Setsuna knew something was different, there were seven forms appearing in the smoke, not the three there had been. Four were lying on the ground, and as the smoke clear, it became apparent that the Gateway to the Future as it was known was in fact what the owner of the store had said it to be: Some form of transportation device.

Konoka was in shock, she was sitting down, having fallen there as the crystal ball's energies took effect. _I didn't think it would actually do this._.. She though mirthlessly. _But what is this?_ Suddenly she realized there was an unconscious person whose head was resting on her lap. It was a girl, slightly older than she was, who had pink colored hair and glasses.

As the smoke cleared, the three other unconscious girls became clear on the floor. The girls on the floor; one with a pair of ribbons forming two ponytails in her purple colored hair, the second also had purple hair, but in one yellow bow, the last a short girl with long blue hair; were all wearing black robes.

"Wha-Who?" Asuna started. Then stopped and took a breath.

"Maybe they're in some sort of cult or something, and they activated the ball in their world at the same time," Negi suggested.

"I'm not so sure Negi-sensei" Setsuna said, "Not one of these girls has a magical aura though..." she stopped and looked at them silently

"Though what Set-chan?" Konoka said.

"Though it appears that two of them have a great potential to learn." She finished her thoughts as they looked at the sleeping girls. "One almost as much as you Ojou-sama." That statement elicited shocked gasps from everyone present. Konoka recovered the quickest, slowly picking the girl in her lap up and laying her on the couch.

Setsuna and Asuna put the girl with the yellow bow in Konoka's bed while Negi got a blanket and pillows for the other two girls on the floor.

 

* * *

 

Even in her sleep, Kagami knew that they were in trouble, and that she was really going to hurt Konata when she woke up. But _then again, Konata was probably just playing around and something happened. It wasn't her fault was it? What am I saying, of course this is her fault, only Konata could manage to cause such confusion and such such..._ she swore even in her dreams she felt bile in her mouth as the thought came to her so she switched it, _such irritation_. She finished, glad to be away from the previous thought.

She wasn't aware that the person of her dreams, quite literally, was sleeping soundly right next to her in the same futon.

Suddenly an odd feeling came over Kagami, as if someone was holding her, even though she knew she was asleep. No wait. I feel hands...Hands where there shouldn't be! Her eyes shot open as she realized someone's hands were firmly attached to her chest from behind, and that she was sharing covers with that person.

"What the Hell!" She burst out of Konata's grip and spun around, scaring Konata awake and causing quite a scene to unfold.

As she had spun, Setsuna had stepped between Kagami and Konoka, sensing anger in Kagami's voice and manner. Asuna scrambled to her feet from where she had been sitting, Tsukasa, in Konoka's bed, shot up and slammed her head into the bunk eliciting a sharp "oww" from her. Miyuki merely turned over and stayed asleep, having grown used to Konata and Kagami's regular antics she though little of it. Negi had grabbed his staff and looked on nervously..

Kagami, realized she had no clue where she was, but that thought strayed from her mind for a second. I _was sharing blanket with Konata..._ She outwardly shuddered. _AND SHE TOUCHED ME!_ Her anger was almost boiling as she looked at Konata, and immediately erupted into laughter.

Konata was staring at the swordswoman and the girl behind her, as well as the boy nearby with the staff, who was now glowing with energy. Konata's expression was priceless. Kagami knew Konata was thinking she had fallen right into one of her games.

Konata however, wasn't really thinking at all, her brain was frying trying to process what she was actually witnessing. _Oh, it's an event that even I couldn't predict, face to face with a princess and her samurai.._ Her mind raced and her jaw slightly drooped until Kagami noticed she was drooling and kicked her slightly.

"Hey, Konata." she said irritated.

So Kagami is here, it must be a dream then. A light bulb went off in her head. _wait why must it be a dream if Kagami is here?_ She turned and saw Kagami staring at her, face angry and exasperated at once. "Nope no dream! That's the Kagamin-sama I know!"

"I keep telling you not to call me that Konata!" Kagami said, her face getting slightly red, not entirely from anger.. For some reason the girl behind the swordswoman laughed at that sentence.

Kagami stood up and introduced herself.

"Hi, I'm Kagami. Over there is my sister Tsukasa," she said pointing to Tsukasa who was holding her head in pain "This is Konata," She pointed to the still slightly out of it Konata. "And on your couch is Miyuki." She said as she was locating everyone. _At least they're all safe._

Asuna responded first, stepping towards Kagami and smiling "I'm Asuna."

"I'm Konoka." Konoka said happily, as her surprise began to fade.

"I am Setsuna." Setsuna said as she sheathed her sword, much to Kagami's relief.

"I'm Negi Springfield." Negi said, his face still looked confused, but he seemed to be calm at least.

"AND I AM CHAMO THE GREAT!" Chamo said jumping onto the coffee table.

Kagami felt her legs give out at this last introduction, Konata caught her, but barely. Konata was almost as surprised as Kagami, but was more accepting of Chamo due to all of her time playing games. It almost seemed right to have a talking animal at this point.. Konata manage to help Kagami down gently, though not easily, and then turned to the people she had just met.

"So, where should we start when it comes to explaining all this?" Konata calmly asked. No one responded at first so she then started her tale "We went into this old store this afternoon..."

 

* * *

 

Konoka handed Konata a cup of coffee just as Konata finished her story about finding the ball and events. Much of Konata's story was met by confused stares, due to Konata's excited nature and general way of talking, but they got the gist of the situation and realized that in all likelihood, it was Konoka and Konata's simultaneous touching of the Crystal that had activated the ball and brought the girls to this world.

"Well now that we're here, I'd like to know where exactly here is." Konata asked as Tsukasa came over to sit down next to her. Konata's face said she was more than just kind of interested.

"This is Mahora Academy," Negi spoke up, "and you're in the all girl's dormitories here, and this is Konoka and Asuna's room." Konata looked at Konoka for an instant then noticed the object in her hand.

"Is that a wand?" She asked.

All six people awake looked at her, The Hiiragi sisters in a sort of shocked manner, the rest in a slightly guilty way, they hadn't really explained that two of them were mages yet. Once this fact was revealed Konata's smiled grew ten times over.

Kagami, not quite as accepting as Konata, forced her jaw shut at this particular confession. _I've been teleported to some weird place questioning this now doesn't make sense.._ She still was trying to completely digest what she was being told, by a now eager Konoka, about mages and stuff she had thought only existed in manga and anime.

"Also in this world there are good mages and bad mages." Konoka was saying, "As well as dragons and vampires, among others.." Kagami was shocked to say the least. So was Konata, but she looked almost excited enough to pass out..

"Konata, you're drooling again." Kagami said with a smile, but she was still trying to process everything. She turned to Negi. "So what do we do now?"

"We... we really don't know to be honest," Negi answered. "I'll have to do some research but it seems as though for now you're all stuck here. We'll have to report this to the school's dean and find somewhere for you all to stay."

"Negi-kun, let's do that in the morning, It's late as it is a gramps is probably already asleep."

"I suppose your right Konoka-san, but where will they stay tonight?"

Asuna, who had been keeping quiet up until now spoke up. "They can stay in here; we can get some extra futons from the schools supply closet down the hall and set them up on the floor. That Miyuki girl seems to be asleep still so she can have the couch."

"Ojou-sama, it's not that I distrust anyone, but due to the circumstances, I would like to stay by your side tonight if that is OK." Setsuna was slightly blushing, but it turned full blown with Konoka's response.

"Of course Set-chan can stay, I'll make some room on my bed and we can sleep together." She smiled. She meant it to be completely innocent, but given Setsuna's reaction, along with how sweet Konoka was smiling, most of the people in the room blushed.

 

* * *

 

"Oj-Ojou-sama I cannot, it wouldn't be the right-" _Oh maybe that came out wrong. Well it doesn't matter, as long as Set-chan is near me it'll be OK._

Konoka's smile grew and that only added to the general confusion within the room. Konoka was giggling as she pushed Setsuna into the hall to go collect the blankets and bedrolls. The last thing they all heard as the door closed was:

"But I thought Set-chan wanted to sleep by my side."

 

* * *

 

Kagami was slightly in awe of the little scene she had witnessed. _What is going on there? And why am i jealous?'_ her gaze shifted to Konata, who was calmly talking to the rat like creature, who had said its name was Chamo, sitting on the table.

"So what kind of magic is there and how hard is it to learn." Konata was saying, eyes shining. _It's not like i want to sleep next to Konata like that or anything. Or do I? NO! I certainly don't!_ with that thought she went to talk to Asuna, who was watching the conversation.

"So, let me get all this straight," Kagami said to Asuna. "We've been magically transported to an unknown place, and you're having four total strangers spend the night in your dorm room and think absolutely nothing against it?"

"When you've been around Negi as long as I have, and faced what our group of friends has over the last 4 or so years, you start to learn to take things in stride a little. I survived having a ten-year-old mage as my teacher and all his magical misadventures since. At this point, helping a few confused girls who are here because of my best friend's innocent carelessness, among other things, is just another day."

At this Kagami could only stare. "Is that so..." It's not that simple though is it?

"If you're stuck here long enough you'll get used to it. Mostly.. Also in the morning...No I suppose there's no need to worry you over that. It probably won't happen."

Kagami had the sudden feeling that what she didn't know might not be better left unknown, but she wouldn't force it.

In short order, Konoka and Setsuna returned with the blankets and such and everyone got ready for bed. As it turned out Konoka had won her argument by convincing Setsuna that it was the only way there would be room. Setsuna was blushing from ear to ear the entire time they set the room up.

Konata was setup next to Tsukasa with Kagami on Tsukasa's other side. Its _not like I wanted to sleep next to Konata anyways_. Kagami sighed. _Why am I sighing?_ She ducked under her covers to hide her face. Konata noticed Kagami acting funny and whispered something to Tsukasa, who giggled slightly, nodded and then switched places with Konata.

Asuna looked around the room as she turned out the lights. Setsuna and Konoka were asleep, Setsuna's right arm protectively holding Konoka. Of the three new friends lying on the floor, the one with shorter purple hair was asleep, but the other two seemed to be whispering to each other, but upon hearing the first part, decided not to eavesdrop and climbed into her bed.

"Kagamiin."

"What Konata?"

"I'm Cold."

"NO!"

"No what?"

"No you can't come over here."

"I just wanted you to get me some water."

"Eh?" Kagami blushed under her covers. "Get your own water Konata."

Konata was quiet for a minute. "Konata?"

Konata was lying there, thinking. Normally _she'd yell at me or something_. "Kagami?" She rarely used Kagami's name normally and Kagami was slightly thrown off.

"What Konata?

"Do you want to sleep with me?" Even Konata blushed at saying that.

Kagami though for just a second. _Why am I hesitating?_ "Go to sleep Konata."

It was a long time before either of them finally fell asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End Notes: Well that's chapter two. Hope you all enjoyed it, because I enjoyed writing it. If the chapter breaks seem odd, its because I turned what was originally four chapters into just two. No story changes or anything, just formatting ones. Otherwise, chapter one was always much bigger than the rest. This way it's about even. Will have more soon, but haven't even started it yet.


	3. Dreams, Goals and Decisions

_This can't all be real. It just can't._ Deep in her dreams, Kagami Hiiragi still focused on what she was convinced was all just a nightmare. _I'll wake up and Konata will be staring at me and everything will just be a crazy dream. Magic. Yeah right._ From outside her thoughts words reached her brain though her sleep.

"What do you think Konata-san?" A boy's voice was saying. A voice she was all too familiar with responded.

"Whoa! Cool, Can you teach me to do that?" Excitable _as ever huh Konata? Wait…_ She opened her eyes slowly, half not wanted to see, and half-hoping she wasn't awake at all.

Konata was standing and talking to a boy of about 13, who was still taller than Konata herself. She was holding what appeared to be a wand. That was when Kagami fully remembered everything, and just how real it was. _Just great._ She sighed slightly, got up and started to walk over to the two, who were currently the only ones awake. She passed a clock and almost turned back to bed. What is she doing pestering a kid at four in the morning? Seeing Kagami walk up, Konata smiled happily and said.

"Oi Kagamin, Negi, err Negi-sensei actually, was telling me about magic, he says he thinks I can learn how to use it too." That sentence was where Karma's brain just snapped. Something about the fact that her friend just so calmly stated that not only was she going to learn magic from a kid, but that said kid was a teacher was just a bit much to process all at once. All she actually said though was:

"Oh. That's nice." She then walked over to the wall and proceeded to bang her head against it. Repeatedly.

"Kagami! That won't help you sort things out. Besides you will wake everyone up if you don't stop." Konata said calmly in a tone that evoked a glare from Kagami.

"This is your fault Konata, I know they said it was some fluke, but I think it was just your determination to reenact something from one of those games."

"That's silly Kagamin, It couldn't be my fault. Now I can't even access my online games, the ones that actually exist here say my accounts don't exist." She sounded somewhat depressed saying this and Kagami's face softened a bit.

_I suppose it is as hard on her as it is for the rest of us... It's not really her fault, things just happened that way. WAIT._ Her face contorted as if she smelled something she disliked. _When did she check her games? And how?_ Her face took on her usual half-appalled half "bleh" look. Konata gave her a rather pathetic look then smiled again.

"Kagamin's face is so cute when she's confused." Konata just continued to smile sweetly.

"Whatever, look Konata, you should get back to sleep; I know the tomorrow is going to be busy, who knows what will happen."

"Alright Kagamin, I just want to talk to Negi-sensei for another minute or two then I'll go back to sleep."

 

* * *

 

Too soon for a raven-haired protector, the sun began to creep above the horizon and into the room. She was awake long for before anyone, but Setsuna didn't want to wake Konoka so she just stayed where she was. _Kono-chan is so beautiful when she's sleeping._ She blushed, realizing that she was thinking she would like to stay like this forever.

She just lay their watching and listening to Konoka's breathing for almost an hour until Asuna above them began waking up. She sighed, but then scolded herself on her thoughts. She was here to protect Kono-chan, not fantasize about her. She began to gently attempt to wake Konoka.

* * *

 

The object of her affections, however, was sound asleep, dreaming of a certain winged protector she couldn't live without. Exactly how she felt about her dearest friend, she had never really thought of it as anything more than friendship. Until around a week ago, that is. Since then she didn't know what to think.

**\---Flashback---**

Konoka smiled and hummed happily, as she walked down the hall leading from the co-op to the dorms. She had already planned dinner, but had forgotten that they were out of eggs and flour for the cake she was making for dessert.

As she was walking up the back steps to her room, she saw Misora as she ran up to Kazumi, the Academy's best know student reporter, and ask her a question. Normally she wouldn't eavesdrop or even worry with it at all, but she heard Set-chan's name. She peaked at the two who were talking before ducking back under the stairs. She had only intended to listen for a minute at first.

"So Kazumi, is there anything to the rumors about Setsuna secretly being interested in other girls? I've had my suspicions for years now, but she's not exactly the kind you can ask if that kind of thing to ya know?"

In her hiding spot, Konoka spaced out for a second _. Set-chan likes other girls_? At first, she didn't really understand what it meant, but when Kazumi responded, she felt her chest tighten a bit though she wasn't sure why at first.

"I wouldn't say she likes girls exactly, but from what I can tell, she does seem to have eyes for a certain one." Kazumi smiled. She knew Konoka was there, having caught a glimpse of her before she had hidden again. "As for who, I can't be certain, but It seems as though it's someone she's close to. But if you really want to know, you should ask her yourself." She looked dead at Konoka saying this.

"Eh, I think I'll pass on that Kazumi, she'd likely try to hurt me if I asked her that kind of thing. And that's just what she would do if it weren't true. Thanks for the info anyways Kazumi!" Misora ran off and Kazumi smirked, and then left as well thinking about what she had just done.

_Set-chan… Set-chan_. Konoka was far beyond lost. _Set-chan likes someone? And that someone is a girl? That can't be true. Set-chan can't like someone._ Her breath caught when she realized the reason. she thought that Setsuna couldn't like anyone that way. _Set-chan can't like anyone. Anyone else. She's my Set-chan. But then…_ Her eyes grew wide as she realized what was running through her head; she desperately needed to talk to Asuna.

Upon reaching her room, she took a deep breath, took out a small mirror and made sure she looked OK.

She then walked in and set the flour on the counter, hid the eggs before anyone had a chance to notice and turned to Negi.

"Negi-kun would you do me a favor?"

"What is it Konoka-san?"

"The co-op was out of eggs, so would you mind going into town to buy me a carton please?"

"Sure Konoka-san."

"Oh and take Chamo-kun with you, he's been staying inside to much lately."

He began to get ready to leave. Konoka handed him the money and shuffled him and his familiar-like ermine out the door. Once the door closed she turned and ran towards Asuna who had until then been half watching TV half studying.

"Asuna, I need your advice." Her tone instantly got Asuna's attention, as did the tears forming in her eyes.

"Konoka! What's wrong?" Konoka told her about what she had overheard earlier, leaving her thoughts about what she had realized afterwards out. Then she looked at Asuna who for some reason was smiling. Konoka didn't see it as so funny and started getting more upset.

"Why are you so happy about it? This is serious!" She said all but crying when a sudden thought occurred to her. _What if Asuna is the one Set-chan likes?_ This only compounded her worries and caused her to cry more. _What if I lost them both because of…_

"Oh I agree Konoka, very much so, but why are you worried about it? So what if Setsuna likes someone, even if it is a girl?" Asuna was fighting very hard to not tell Konoka everything she knew. "She'll still be your friend forever you know. Regardless of her own feelings she will stay by your side no matter what." _And in part because of her feelings._

"-.-.,-.-,"

"What was that Konoka?"

"What would you think of me if, hypothetically, I wanted Set-chan to myself?"

Asuna resisted the urge to laugh. _If she ever finds out, Setsuna won't ever stop blushing._ "Konoka, exactly what do you mean by 'to yourself'? Want her to yourself how? And why? She'd stay by your side regardless of anything else anyways, so it's not like you're going to lose her if she falls in love with someone." _Quite the opposite actually_...

Konoka's heart had stopped at the word love. And her eyes narrowed. _Asuna can't really be the one Set-chan likes. Can she?_ She felt the beginnings of jealousy, though she wasn't familiar enough with the emotion to realize what it was yet. She just knew she was getting angry.

The dangerous look on her face was not lost to Asuna. It dawned on her what Konoka might be worried about.

"Konoka, you don't have to worry about Setsuna liking me. She knows who I like and so do you; she even encouraged me to do something about it." _Still working on that part though and here I am trying to give advice._

Konoka relaxed a bit, but that actually raised other problems for her. If it wasn't Asuna, she didn't know who it could possibly be. The most obvious answer to her dilemma was just out of her realm of comprehension.

"More Importantly Konoka is why you are taking so much interest in Setsuna's love life. Exactly how do you feel about Setsuna?" Asuna asked nicely. She could tell rather well exactly how Konoka felt, but it wasn't her place to do anything more to encourage the two, they'd figure it out and tell each other someday, and the fact the feeling was mutual only increased those odds. _Setsuna really isn't going to stop blushing when Konoka finally tells her…_

Konoka's answer wouldn't come to her then, or even in her conscious mind. Only in her dreams could she really admit, even to herself, just how she might feel. She just started crying, and continued to for quite a while. Why exactly she was crying, she really couldn't understand at all, but she was almost glad for some reason.

**\---End Flash Back---**

 

_It's because I think I love her. Not just because she's always there, but because I would be emptier without her But I must just be mistaken. I can't be in love with Set-chan. She's my friend, but that has to be it. But then why do I always feel so…so jealous when I think of her with someone else? And why do I so enjoy the idea she always goes on about being by my side forever? I just wish it was me she liked._

Suddenly Konoka was aware of being gently spoken to and shook. She then became aware of a person snuggled close against her and upon realizing it was Set-chan, decided that this dream could last for another few hours and snuggled even closer against Setsuna.

Setsuna in turn, blushed heavily and proceeded in trying again to wake Konoka, this time with slightly more urgency. Konoka finally opened her eyes and remembered where she was and why they were like this. She blushed slightly and began to wake up.

"Mornin' Se-chan." Konoka said smiling, images from her dream mixed with real life before her eyes.

"Good morning Ojou-sama," Setsuna responded almost regretting the automatic way it sounded, "Did you sleep well?"

Konoka frowned. "Not Ojou-sama, Kono-chan." She fought with the urge to kiss Setsuna that had appeared in her mind and sat up using clearing her eyes as a means of covering a blush. _It was just a dream. I'm just having odd dreams is all._

"But I did sleep well Set-chan. How about you?"

Next to a true angel who wouldn't? Setsuna thought, but just said. "I slept well Oj...Kono-chan." She all but whispered. The two stared at each other for well over a minute, both of them unconsciously fighting themselves and simultaneously giving in.

Konoka heard Asuna do something and decided to use it as an excuse to break eye contact with Setsuna, which was a good deal harder than she expected. Kagami, Konata, and Tsukasa were still asleep, Miyuki was just waking up and Asuna had woken Negi up and was about to get dressed for the day. She had called in sick for her paper route today.

"Why are you two still in bed?" Asuna said smiling. "If you stay like that for two long, our guests might get the wrong impression."

Both of them blushed at that, more so than normal due to their independent, yet identical, recent thoughts on exactly that topic.

Konoka did her best to hide hers as she jumped from bed and went into the kitchen. Presumably, she started making breakfast, but really, she was lost in thought again. She almost tried to fry an egg in a cold pan. Setsuna just sat on the best for a second, blushed heavily and headed into the bathroom to take a very cold shower.

* * *

 

As the smell of breakfast foods began to fill the room, a certain otaku began to wake up. She had been dreaming of becoming a spell caster and going on a big adventure with her friends. She was slightly aware before getting up, that her back was against someone else. She was happy that Kagami was there too, even if Kagami never really showed much interest in Konata's activities, Konata always liked being around her.

In fact it was part of that "Really caring but not really wanting to admit it" part of Kagami that Konata enjoyed so much. It kept things between them fun, and it just increased Konata's feelings for the purple haired girl.

Konata sat up just as Setsuna was coming out of the bathroom. Konata watched the swordswoman as she began to talk to Konoka. There was an odd air between the two of them, one she was fairly certain only they were unaware of. It took a minute, but suddenly it clicked in her brain what kind of aura the two were giving off. Hehe, the Knight in love with her princess forced to hide it forever, and the princess who loves her knight but can't admit it. CLASSIC.

She decided not to say anything since it wasn't really her place to anyways. She got up and headed towards the kitchen. _I won't say anything directly but maybe I can get one of them to trip a flag today and get something going on their own._ She'd rather enjoy seeing it, because it could help her and a certain Tsundere as well. But for now, she was hungry. Food first, and then plot advancing.

"Hiya! What are you fixing?" She looked at Konoka's cooking food and said. "That looks good."

"Thank you." Konoka smiled, welcoming the distraction the rather short girl provided her from her own brooding thoughts. "It should be ready in just a few minutes if you want to wake up your friends."

"Hai!" Konata rushed around the counter and towards Tsukasa and Kagami. She jumped over Tsukasa and went straight for Kagami who, up until now, had been sleeping peacefully.

Kagami was sleeping soundly and rather enjoying a calm normal dream when suddenly her body warned her that she might be in danger. Sure enough, as her eyes shot open, Konata in her haste got one of her feet caught in a blanket and fell towards Kagami. Luckily, since she had woken up in time, Kagami managed to catch her without both of them tumbling onto the floor.

Or so she would have thought. She failed to notice a certain gleam in the little otaku's eyes as she deliberately shifted her weight just so and caused Kagami to over compensate and instead of catching her, end up falling on top of her. Unfortunately, for Konata's plan, they both ended up landing on a still sleeping Tsukasa. Tsukasa of course woke up at this rolling out from under them and stood up rubbing her eyes, but rather than be angry or worried, asked in a sleepy and slightly confused voice.

"Um, Onee-chan why are you lying on top of Kona-chan like that?" This statement, combined with the commotion their falling had caused, made everyone in the room stop and look at them.

Negi blushed and went back to what he was doing making a note of not looking at them, Asuna smiled in a way that, to Kagami, seemed like she knew something; then she too went back to morning activities. Setsuna just blushed but Konoka's reaction, however, startled Kagami the most.

Konoka was watching them with an almost jealous look on her face. It didn't really fit her well, but it was there. It was about then that Konata brought something else to Kagami's attention. In her most ladylike, and obviously fake, voice, Konata said.

"Why Kagami, I had no idea you felt that way about me, or that you were so forceful." Kagami realized where her hands were and blushing heavily jumped back.

"What's with that voice? You should be more careful Konata. You could have hurt yourself."

"I didn't realize you care so much Kagami-chan" She said in the same innocent voice then in a voice only Kagami could hear, "You really shouldn't have acted like you enjoyed it so much then Kagamin." Konata muttered.

"What was that you little runt? Just what are you saying?" Kagami's eyes narrowed. Tsukasa got an even more confused look on her face and looked from Kagami to Konata then back.

"Breakfast is ready!" Konoka interrupted from the kitchen. Kagami's stomach growled and that pretty much erased all of the tension from the room. Konoka, with Setsuna's help, brought the food to the little coffee table in the room. Breakfast went by with no real fuss as everyone eating was too focused on their food and their own thoughts.

After breakfast, Negi called the dean of the school to see if they could come see him as soon as possible. The urgency in his voice was more than enough to convince the dean that the planned administration meeting he had planned to attend could mange without him. He told Negi to bring them as soon as they were all ready.

The group was getting ready to leave the room when a knock at the door was followed by a tall blonde walking into the room without even waiting for an answer.

"How is Negi-sensei thi…?" She stopped mid sentence noticing the four girls whom she didn't know, the shortest of which was, in her opinion, far too close to Negi at the moment. Looking around the room, she had quickly ascertained that the four had slept in the room. "WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" She demanded in a voice that woke the half of their floor still sleeping and causing the rest to rush to see what was going on this time, even more so because her follow up sentence was easily misleading.

* * *

 

"Why are their four strange girls sleeping with Negi-sensei Asuna?" Asuna could only sigh and try to calm the excitable blonde-haired woman down.

"Ayaka relax it's not what you think really." Asuna tried.

"Really and what am I suppose to think when four suspicious girls are sleeping in the same room as dear Negi-sensei?"

_Suspicious?_ Kagami thought. S _he's the one bursting into people's rooms without permission; at least our being here was accidental._

Unfortunately, before she could come up with any real response Konata burst out.

"We were brought her by a unique event. The ma-Mphghg!" Negi and Konoka both stopped her mid sentence, having realized they forgot to say how much of a secret magic was here.

Asuna took this chance to try to step in, but just the Kazumi, along with nearly half of the now most famous class of Mahora, were entering the room, Cameras and camera phones flashing and questions of nearly every sort.

 

* * *

 

A good hour later, when the questions had been answered as best as possible, including a few private ones from Kazumi and a few others about what was really going on, they were in the dean's office and Negi was finishing the story of what had happened as best as he could.

"Hmm, that is an interesting story, and a problem not easily solved hmm. Do you have the artifact?"

"Yes Sir." Konoka, who had brought it, pulled it out of a bag she used to carry it.

"Here you go gramps."

"Thank you Konoka, I'll see what we can discover on it and its origins, and if and how to reverse its actions. But for now, we have four young girls whose situation needs to be figured out; I don't think sleeping in your room will work for long." He sat forward and continued, "Now, I think given everything, putting you in Negi's class is the safest plan, assuming you're here when school begins again. It will mean you taking a grade you've all done before, but I believe it is the best move. A

s for rooms, we only have three available anywhere near Negi-sensei's, so I'm placing the Hiiragi twins in a double room, and giving you other two the smaller rooms. Is that OK with you?"

Konata looked as if she wanted to object, but decided not to under the look of the old dean. He wasn't scary or anything, it just looked like he wasn't the type she could easily convince her to stay with Kagami. _Besides, even in a different room, I'm still closer than normal._ Her face took on a satisfied look.

"Good. Now that that is settled, here at Mahora we have, because of a large number of ahem "Mysterious" incidents involving Negi-kun's class, allotted a good deal of unused money from our tuition account towards a fund for such occasions, we will be using those to pay for your school uniforms, books and other supplies. I suppose you can thank your new teacher and class for that."

Negi and Asuna both blushed at this but the old man just smiled at them. He was well aware that the situations that had been so expensive were also learning experiences for Student's and Teacher alike and built bonds that normal school life couldn't.

Konata decided that, just so she could say she tried, this was the best time to ask. The worst that could happen was he'd say no, she hoped anyways.

"Um, Dean Sir? Would it be possible to get me a computer with some of those funds?" Kagami's face again took on a disgusted looked while the dean just observed the smiling Otaku for a minute.

"For now worry about getting used to where you are." He said finally, eliciting a smug look from Kagami, however upon seeing Konata's almost dejected and childlike response and appearance, he softened a bit.

"But if it appears you will be here a while we will look into it." Her cloud of sadness was replaced with an aura of hope and she smiled again. Kagami could only shake he head. _She does know how to get her way..._

"OK!" Konata said, once again her normal happy self.

"Now girls, I need to speak with Negi-sensei alone for a bit. Konoka, Setsuna, Asuna, if you don't mind would you like to show these girls around the school and city? They will need guides or they may get lost."

"Of course Sir." Asuna and Setsuna replied, Konoka just smiled and nodded and began pushing them all from the room.

* * *

 

"Negi-kun," the old dean said softly. "I wasn't completely honest with the girls, I know quite a bit about this artifact as it is. Given the level of power the artifact has, and that it doesn't draw it's power from any one world, but rather from hundreds or even, theoretically speaking, thousands of worlds, it is entirely possible that we will not be able to undo what has happened, in particular if your theory on what activated it is correct.

That is to say if it was in fact activated by two beings with near equal, and equally large at that, magical energies touching two instances of it in different worlds. If that is the case, then there may or may not be another in their world who can use it, and if there is, how can either we or they know how to use it to send them home?"

He stared at the ball before him then at the boy, "But regardless of what comes, you must support those four girls as their teacher and as a friend. If it turns out they cannot return home, it may take a long time for them to get over it." He saw the young teacher's depressed look.

"For now however all we can do is hope. I will send out requests for experts and we will do our best, there is always light until the last flame dies." With that, he dismissed Negi and turned around towards the window. _I just wish I knew where the candle was right now_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written mostly in my editing to be honest; the initial draft was so skeletal it scared me. (A little under 1,000 words), heck the entire flashback sequence was an edit and it alone is over a 1,000 words. After I started editing, different ideas and plots kept coming up, so I decided to expand on the ones I liked best. I just edited, reread, edited more and more and then I noticed the word count and proceeded to curse out loud... I'm starting on Chapter 4 once this is up, so it shouldn't be too long... (I think I've said that before somewhere...)
> 
> And I hope the Flashback wasn't too much but I wanted to add something that built things up in a way I personally haven't seen that much in writing recently. Hope it worked out as well as I would have liked it to.


	4. Smiles and Tears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this chapter turned out OK. I did a lot of rewriting on it but I know it's still not perfect. Feedback is always welcome.

Upon leaving the Dean's office, Asuna realized a couple things; the first was they had no clue what rooms the girls would be in, and the second was that there was no realistic way to show them the school AND the city in just one day. Deciding to cover the first part now, she asked Konoka about it.

"Hey Konoka, the Dean told us to show them their rooms but he didn't say where the rooms were, so what are we suppose to do?"

"That's no big deal. There are only three empty rooms on our floor, so it shouldn't be too hard to find them. And if we do have trouble we could always ask Iincho." Asuna cringed slightly. The thought of having to ask Ayaka for anything made her want to vomit. They made a short stop at the schools boarding office to pick up the room keys and headed for the dorms.

Asuna, who had taken it on herself to lead this little tour, had figured the dorms would be the best place to start the tour. While they were here, they could show the girls their rooms, get them settled, and show them all the dorms important places before venturing out into the school's main campus. It was essentially killing two birds at once.

* * *

 

"Hey Kagami," Konata said in a tone that was unusual and was way too serious for her under normal circumstances. "What do you thinks gonna happen to us?"

"I'm not sure Konata, I'm really not sure." _It must be bad if even she is taking this seriously._ They all walked in silence, each caught up in their own thoughts, until they reached the first of their rooms. It was the one intended for the twins.

"So, this is where we will be staying eh Onee-chan?" Tsukasa asked her sister. It was apparent in her voice what she was really asking.

"Just for the time being Tsukasa." She looked at her sister for a minute. "Don't worry, it'll be alright." She knew she had no right to say it. In particular, because right now, she was more worried about that than anything else, but she would never tell Tsukasa that. Her sister was not the bravest at the best of times and she was counting on Kagami to know what to do. She smiled, "Just think of it as a vacation and then things will be just fine."

Tsukasa seemed to regain some of her energy and she smiled. Tsukasa and Konata wandered around the room as Kagami sat down on the couch. Asuna sat down next to her and took a deep breath; While Setsuna took up a place near the door. "Onee-chan we have a kitchen!" Tsukasa said excitedly. Then her face took on a different look. "I suppose we're going to have to start cooking for ourselves all the time and not just lunches."

"Tsukasa you know Kagamin is the type to make pots explode when she tries to cook." Konata said drawing a rather scary look from Kagami until Konoka burst out laughing.

"Asuna used to be the same way." She managed wiping tears from her eyes. "But we managed to get her to be a good cook and it only took us like four years." The atmosphere in the room evaporated instantly and no one said anything for a couple minutes.

Konoka decided to change the subject. "Besides you don't have to always cook the dorms have a nice cafeteria with lots of good food. And you can come over to our room and I'll cook for you as well, I really don't mind."

"Thank you so much Konoka-chan." Tsukasa and Kagami both said at once.

* * *

 

"Once you're ready we'll take you guys to the other rooms." Asuna said getting up. She walked towards the door but as everyone got up to follow, there was a knock. _Wh_ o _could possibly know we were…Kasumi…_

Asuna opened the door and sure enough, Kasumi, flanked by the ever-present Sayo, entered the room. The later of the two had a rather predictable response from Tsukasa, who turned as pale as could be managed and fainted into Miyuki's arms.

The other three took it in varying degrees. Kagami just stared, decided there was no point in being worked up over anything supernatural, although she sat down on the lower bunk of the bed in the room when she felt her legs go numb. _Since when was meeting a ghost, A GHOST, something not to be worked up about?_ Miyuki just stood there holding Tsukasa up. For once in her life, she had no idea what was going on and just wanted time to digest it. The presence of the ghost now would not really register to her until later; she was still trying to understand the world she was in. She was supposed to be the knowledgeable one in the group…

Of course, the most noticeable, and perhaps the most predictable, response came from Konata. The second Sayo, floating as she was, came into the little otaku's eyes Konata nearly had a stroke. She rushed over to Sayo and began to poke at her. This was predictable enough, but what was not predictable or even possible was that she actually _was_ poking Sayo, physically. The fact she was a ghost, and therefore generally did not come in contact with things unless she wanted to, seemed to be of secondary importance behind Konata's curiosity. This particular fact of course never registered to the glazy-eyed otaku but nearly everyone else stared at her.

The fact her closest friend was both being poked and pestered only made Kasumi even more interested in the newcomers. The schools resident Paparazzi had not changed much even in the face of magic, in fact over the last year she had been working on a book she knew would make her famous. Due to its nature, it could never be released in this world, but that was not going to stop Kazumi for a second.

"Asuna, you HAVE to tell me what is going on here, as much as you know."

Asuna sat down on the couch and looked around. She was only half-surprised when she noticed that during the commotion, Konoka had not only managed to scrawl a note saying she was going to get them some food from the co-op, but also managed to smuggle both herself and Setsuna out of the room. _She is absolutely amazing at avoiding situations that she doesn't want to face. I doubt it even occurred to her that, being part of the cause, she should be here to help explain…_

Asuna took a deep breath and began to lay things out for Kazumi. Even with Kagami helping her explaining it would take a while.

* * *

 

The walk to the co-op was unusually quiet for Konoka and Setsuna. Konoka's usual cheeriness and energy was absent and the air between the two seemed, uneasy.

Setsuna was torn. She was honor bound to keep Konoka from harm, took that charge seriously and would rather die than see Konoka hurt. At the same time, Konoka was avoiding the truth and Setsuna wasn't the type to shirk responsibility even when accepting it was hard.

"Set-chan, why are you staring at me like that? You aren't angry because I left are you? We needed to get food for everyone."

The air between them was anything but peaceful as they walked towards the store. For once Setsuna was not happy just being with her Ojou-sama. Even more unusual was that she decided to say something about it.

"I cannot approve of Ojou-sama just leaving Asuna to deal with Kazumi; by all reckoning it was partially your fault this happened." She knew she was being hard on Konoka but Setsuna had a rather strict sense of honor and accepting ones duty. Being right was not making it any easier on her though.

Indeed Konoka's face grew tighter by the word; she was even less used to being scolded by Setsuna than Setsuna was at scolding her, and liked it less that the scolding echoed her own conscience. She knew she should have stayed, that Konata-chan and the others being here was, at least partially, her fault but right now she didn't want to listen to it again, what if it turned out they couldn't get home? They would surely hate her for it. She wasn't sure she could take that.

"Well it's not like I can change anything by being there right now Set-chan." She started to explain.

"You're missing the point Ojou-sama, it's not about doing something, it's about facing the facts of what's happened so you can face what comes when it does, and help the others do the same.

She just stared at Setsuna for a minute before answering in a whisper.

"What would you do if you thought your actions might have ruined four people's lives Set-chan?"

"I would not abandon them the way you seem to be doing Ojou-sama."

Before they left her lips Setsuna wanted the words back. Konoka looked almost like Setsuna had hit her. In a way, she had. It struck deep enough in Konoka's already stressed and distraught mind that something inside the normally sweet girl snapped. Tears began to form in her eyes.

"Set-chan you're an insensitive jerk!" She yelled loud enough to attract the attention of everyone on that end of the floor. "I hate you!" She slapped Setsuna and ran off, leaving Setsuna staring after her in utter shock.

* * *

 

_Kono-chan…what have I done?_ Setsuna never realized her legs were giving out until she felt her knees hit the carpet in the hall. _Kono-chan..._ She did not know she was crying until she felt the tears on her hands. _I'm not supposed to cry I am supposed to protect Kono-chan from harm. Why? Only to cause it myself?_ What little control she had over her tears left her.

She was not even aware of anyone else in the hall until Kaede put a hand on her shoulder from behind. Mana and Ku-Fei had sent everyone else away apparently and now stood behind Kaede off to one side. Setsuna didn't realize she had turned around, or that she was crying Into Kaede's arms in such a public place, but then, all that ran though her head was what she had done and what it must mean. _I'm sorry Kono-chan._

* * *

 

Konoka did not know where she was going, or what to do when she got there, but she did not care anymore. _How could Set-chan be that mean? How could she?_ She realized she had run all the way to the small cottage near the school, and was now pounding on the door yelling for Eva to open it.

"Eh? Stop yelling and pounding on my door. What are you doing here?" Eva paused looking around "And where is that that Knight of yours? You can hardly be found without her around somewhere."

"I can manage just fine without Set-chan thank you very much." Konoka replied curtly. She was not entirely sure how true that really was; Setsuna always seemed to save her when things got out of hand. _Always there to catch me and help me back up._ She shook her head, Setsuna's words from earlier echoed in her mind as she pushed past a cursing Eva to enter the cabin.

"You little twerp, how dare you just come barging into my house and OVER me!" Eva said as she followed Konoka. The look in Konoka's eyes when she rounded on Eva was unnatural enough for her that even the aged vampire was taken aback slightly. They were embers of anger Evangeline had not seen often, and never on anyone like Konoka.

"Ey girl what is it? You get into a fight with your Knight or something?" If Eva had been surprised before, she was more so as Konoka's eyes went from angry to icy in a heartbeat, and then to tears then back again to orbs of flame. All almost too fast to see, even for Eva.

"Is that all anyone thinks of me? Just a sweet little Princess who needs to be protected and told what I should do by others?"

"I never sai-"

"I mean who does she think she is telling me I'm abandoning people. After all, she doesn't have to live with the guilt of ruining lives.

"Slow down girl." Eva attempted. As Konoka continued to roll over and past her, Eva signaled for Chachamaru to make them tea, and she mouthed the words 'The Special Kind' as Chachamaru nodded and went to the kitchen. Konoka of course missed the entire exchange.

"I mean really. Who is she to tell me how to live? She follows others orders without question, except when I tell her to call me Kono-chan of course, because you know showing that much affection for your best friend just can't co-exist with a bodyguard roll. Thank you Chachamaru."

She took a cup of tea from Chachamaru and downed half the cup in one gulp. "As I was saying…" She started again, lasting five minutes longer than Eva expected, in her constant stream of contradicting sentences until she fell forward onto a pillow Chachamaru had ready.

The "Special" kind of tea was as it turns out a nice blend of ingredients that for Eva would give her a rather euphoric, almost narcotic feeling. For any normal human who ingested it would put them out like a light, among other things. As for the other things, well Eva figured the girl would be out long enough after exhausting herself like that that it would not matter… the base for the "tea" was 80 proof alcohol. Eva did not mind helping or listening, well not much at least, but being run over in her own house… Well the girl needed the sleep, being awake any longer could be bad for her the way she was now. So what if Eva got her revenge when she woke up?

* * *

 

"And that's the short of it, we were told to just get them settled and show them around for now." Asuna sighed and leaned back. It had taken nearly an hour to explain it all. It might have taken less but when Tsukasa woke up, they spent nearly 20 minutes convincing her that Sayo wasn't going to possess her or steal her soul.

"So just another one of our classes legendary accidents eh? Well it will make a good chapter for my book. That aside what are your plans? If I know Negi-kun and you Asuna, you won't just let someone else do this, you have to get involved. So what's your plan?"

"My _plan_ is to try to do what the dean said this time, if you recall most of the time our going off to do as we please has caused more problems, not less."

"If I may ask," Kagami started.

"Kagamin stop being so formal, just talk normally, snap and yell at people for being irresponsible."

"Like your one to talk Konata. Have you ever finished a homework assignment on your own?"

Konata stared at her for nearly five minutes as everyone waited for the answer. "Does -"

"No doing homework in a dating sim does NOT count!"

"What -"

"Nor does copying homework."

"You're no fun Kagamin." Konata pouted. Everyone laughed at it, eve Konata after a moment.

"Well what was your question Kagami-san?"Asuna asked.

"I was wondering, supposedly your teacher being a mage was suppose to be a secret, but thus far we've met more people who know than who don't" Sayo and Kasumi Sweat dropped at that and Asuna laughed out loud.

"Well, Negi didn't even teach for a day before I found out and in less than a year most of the class knew... He's bad at that sort of thing."

"Anyhow Asuna, really now, what are your pla-".Kasumi began but there was a knock at the door.

"Who could it be now? Coming!" Asuna got up and opened the door. It was Mana.

"Asuna, can we talk?"

"Sure Mana what's up?"

"Privately?" She looked serious, even for Mana.

"I can show them around Asuna, go on and see what she needs." Kazumi said sensing the mood and Asuna agreed.

"Alright I'm coming Mana."

* * *

 

"OK so where do you guys wanna visit first? I'm sure Asuna was gonna just have you see your rooms and maybe show you around the dorms but that seems a bit dull, so why not introduce you to your new classmates and then I we can show you around the campus and maybe the city. It should help keep you busy for the day at least." Kasumi smiled at Konata's enthusiasm.

"That sounds fun I'm all for it. What about you guys."

"That's fine by me too; it will give us a chance to get used to the place better."

"Kagami always takes the practical route it's so predictable."

"You want me to hit you?"

"Kagami is cute when she's mad."

"Let me get a hold of Negi-kun so we can start gathering the class." Kasumi pulled out her Pactio card to contact Negi, which of course caught Konata's eyes, but she managed to control herself, for now at least.

"Negi-kun said he'd contact Haruna so we can head to the classroom and you can meet everyone."

"Are you sure we don't need to tell anyone else?" Kagami asked.

"Trust me I'm sure half the class knew where to meet before you did."

"Huh?" Kagami and Tsukasa said in unison.

"You'll see."

* * *

 

They walked along in silence for a while before Asuna finally asked what was going on.

"Mana what could possibly be so important?"

"It's about Sakurazaki and Konoe."

"Those two have been gone a long time." She got worried for the first time about it; she had been too busy to notice until now. It had been more than an hour now, the Co-op wasn't that far. "What happened?"

"Just come with me." Asuna didn't like not being told and was about to say so when they reached Setsuna's room. Asuna wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but Ku Fei was standing outside Setsuna's room like a guard.

She had a swollen cheek and was talking to Ayaka, who was attempting to demand access to the room for some reason. Ku Fei also, Asuna noticed, had Setsuna's sword on her back.

"Go on in Asuna, and don't worry no one will bother you. Kaede is inside but I can't really go into any more detail."

Asuna stepped passed Ayaka and Ku Fei into the room and had to sidestep a short blade as it flew across the room and drove itself into the door. Once she had regained her composure, she noticed that Kaede was struggling to keep a rather unstable looking Setsuna calm.

From the looks of the room, this had been going on for some time and very badly at that. The bed was tattered and the rest of the room looked as though there had been a fight and judging from the cut on Kaede's forearm Setsuna wasn't thinking straight.

"What on earth Setsu-" Setsuna's eyes fell on Asuna and the life seemed to drain from them as she sank to the floor. Kaede caught her and helped her down as Asuna shut the door and flew into the room. "What happened?"

Kaede was the one who spoke up. "Well, I haven't been able to get the details from her, it took all three of us to get her sword from her to keep her from her from hurting herself, but the main point of it is that she and Konoka seem to have gotten into a fight of some sort. What it was about maybe you can figure out."

With that Kaede, stood up and walked past Asuna. She whispered. "Just keep an eye on her; she's not herself right now." With that, she left the room.

"Setsuna what happened to you?"

"I... I hurt Kono-chan, and now she hates me."

"Konoka hate you? Seriously, I doubt Konoka can hate anyone, least of all you. She's just stressed out."

"But, she said she hated me and she ran off.." Setsuna didn't add the part about being slapped but to her that wasn't nearly as important as to what she had said.

"Just calm down and tell me what happened alright."

The tightness around Setsuna's eyes remained but she took a deep breath and began telling Asuna about everything.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit, I play sort of loose with perspective shifts, major shifts are easy to denote, but there are many small shifts one one or two lines and I can't find a way to edit them without messing with the flow of the story.


	5. Ashes and Dust

_Set-chan?_

_Hey, Kono-chan ~Ojou-sama~, how are you today~ should not be abandoning them._

"Set-chan, why..."

"Eh? Dreaming of your knight to I see."

Konoka's eyes opened slowly but she snapped them back shut instantly. _My head... it feels like I fell out of a window._

"Where am I? Eva-san?"

"So you don't remember running me over earlier? Exactly what do you remember? Frankly I'm impressed you're up at all but seeing as how you are..."

"Something about..." _Set-chan..._ "No I don't remember much from earlier."

"Girl that would be more convincing if you didn't look like you were about to cry, well I suppose even that would be an improvement over the way you were talking earlier."

"Actually for some reason I don't remember too much from the..."

"Yeah so do you want to talk about it or are you going to continue where you left off berating Sakurazaki?" Eva smirked, the way those two acted, she wished the two would just give up and admit it already.

"Set-cha..." Konoka muttered.

"Wake up girl or I'll dunk your head in a bucket of water."

"I'm awake."

_No, you're not girl, but I don't think you two can ignore it much longer._ "If you say so girl, so if you're awake why don't you tell me why you came barging into my house. "

"Well...It's a bit complicated but.."

* * *

 

"And now Kono-chan won't wanna be around me anymore."

"Do you honestly believe any of that Setsuna? Konoka is just really stressed out. While that probably wasn't the best way to handle it on your part," Setsuna cringed at that. "It's not the kind of thing that... she'd hate you over." She hoped Setsuna would be too distracted to notice the pause when she nearly said the wrong thing. She was thankfully and she merely responded to Asuna's assertions.

"Well, what do you think I should do?"

"To steal your line, don't abandon her." Setsuna's face twitched at it but she seemed to get back some of her energy.

"Your right Asuna. Thanks. I'm gonna go find Ojou-" *Cough* "I mean Kono-chan now and work things out thanks. "

With that, she stood up and headed for the door. She stopped for just a second though. "Could.. You like just make something up about why I was upset today Asuna?"

"For now just go find her."

Setsuna nodded and left the room. A minute later Kaede and Ku Fei came in. Kaede looked around sighed and the turned to Asuna.

"I don't know what you said Asuna, but she seemed like her old self, albeit a very determined version."

"I just told her what she knew already is all."

* * *

 

"Gateway? That bloody thing still exists?"

"Then you know what it is Eva-chan?"

"Of course I do, used right its one of the most powerful artifacts in the world. I suppose it never occurred to you that it could have done other things than it had. Like say sucking all of you into a world without air, or simply just exploding. Toying with magical items is dangerous. "

"Well we weren't aware it was magical when we got it." Eva gave her a flat stare.

"Four years ago girl I might have believed it, but you've progressed so much since back then that I _know_ you knew it was magical."

_My biggest worry is the other gateway though..If someone had it when this one was activated.._

"Anyways girl about you and Sakurazaki."

*Knock knock*.

_Who the hell is it now? I swear if it's Sakurazaki, I'm going to hurt her..._

She walked down stairs distracted and irritated. If anyone else had opened the door, they probably wouldn't have had time to react.

Eva wasn't your average person though and while she certainly wasn't expecting to have a burst of magic come through her front door and try to take her head off, hundreds of years of instinct allowed her to form a shield to absorb most of it...

"The hell are you thinking. That could have killed me. "Eva yelled as she slammed into the wall opposite the door. Chachamaru ran out from the kitchen into the room and a sword came out of her arm.

"That was my intent Dark Evangel." A masked voice said from outside her door. It was being masked magically and Eva couldn't tell if she was even facing a human or not.

"I had hoped to avoid a confrontation with you. No matter, you are not why I am here, but you are in my way. Move or be moved." A humanoid shape appeared in the doorway.

"Who the hell do you think you're talking too? I am without equal fool. I will kill you for attacking me! Chachamaru. Remove this pest."

"Yes master."

Chachamaru never got within five paces of the being before being flung sideways and out through the wall of the cabin. Eva didn't even pause. As Chachamaru disappeared outside, she summoned a large spear of ice, which she hurled at the being in the doorway. It, almost casually, dispelled it with a small wall of fire. In the process, its hood fell down however.

It was a she. To Eva she appeared to be a vampire at least that is what Eva sensed off her. Only... _No that isn't her at all... Shit. Not without a fight, you won't._

"Evangeline, The Dark Evangel, one of the most feared mages in the world. I wonder just what kind of power you really have."

The woman's lips moved incredibly fast and a ball of fire shot towards Eva's face. Eva just flung it aside and it slammed into the staircase, blasting open a hole. Konoka, who was about to come down to see what was happening, jumped back just in time to avoid being hit.

"You do realize that despite the fact that you'll be a corpse by the time they arrive, that this is a school with dozens of mages in its staff and countless magic sensing alarms across campus right? I doubt it'll take them more than 10 minutes to get there."

"And why pray tell would they think it odd that magic is coming from a known Mage's house? In particular one as, how you say delinquent, as you." The woman said with a sneer. "As I said though I'm not interested in you at all, you are merely an inconvenient roadblock to my job. "

"Phf, Like I care, I'll be the last roadblock of your life you idiot, barging into my house. And what is all this about a job?"

The response the mystery person gave was rather direct, she crossed the room in an instant and had Eva by the neck lifting her off the ground. Eva kicked her in the chest and dropped to the ground. The girl fired a fireball at Eva pointblank, but this time Eva countered it with a water shield followed by ice spell. The spell caught the girl off guard and stabbed into her left leg.

Grunting the mystery woman kicked Eva in the side of the head sending her crashing through a nearby bookshelf. She stood up a bit more shakily than she would have liked. _Damn in this form I'm not nearly as strong as I need to be._

"It seems you are not quite as dangerous as master feared, no matter, as I said you were a roadblock, and you have been removed. "

She raised her hand and quickly casting, fired 10 high level fireballs at Eva. _Shi-_.

* * *

 

~10 minutes earlier~

"This is the main school, but I figure you could probably tell that already. Our class is one of the most famous", _Infamous more like_ "in the school. We've been together as a class for a few years now, so we are all practically like a family, though like a family there are some unique rivalries and disagreements, not the least of which is a four year running debate over our teacher."

"What does that mean?" Konata ad Kagami asked at the same time.

"Well when Negi-kun first showed up here some of our class fell for him."

The blank look on Tsukasa and Kagami's face said it all. Konata just smiled.

"Yeah I don't really get it either, but in at least a couple cases it truly was a romantic interest. Last year when Negi-kun finally decided to address everyone about it was a rather interesting day, but I'll tell you that story later. We're here."

Kasumi opened the classroom door and followed Kagami and the others in.

"WELCOME!" only about 2/3rds of the class was gathered including the teacher. Those gathered were the ones who knew about Negi. However, even then a large part of the class was present. Haruna was the first to come up to them with Nodoka and Yue in tow.

"Yo! I heard from Negi that we had new classmates but not that there were four of them. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Haruna, #1 school Gossip and, regardless of what anyone says, a nice person. Let me introduce you to the class, well most of it anyways, the rest don't know about Negi-kun's magic so it seemed best to let you know who it was safe to talk to about that and who not."

"It's nice to meet you I'm Nodoka Miyazaki." Nodoka bowed and smiled.

"The quieter one here is Yue, she normally talks but she's got a sore throat today."

The rest of the group made introductions which went well as could be expected. Then Konata met Chisame.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm typing, what does it look like?"

"Like you're typing I suppose, what kind of question is that?"

"What kind of person asks someone what they're doing 2 seconds after meeting them?"

"Me."

"Are you bothering people already Konata?" Kagami and Kasumi came up.

"It doesn't take much with Chiu here, just getting near here is enough to get her all antsy."

"It's Chisame in public..." Chisame started without thinking. Thankfully, only Kasumi, Kagami and Konata were near enough to hear though. Kasumi coughed. Suddenly, and conveniently for the two of them, there was a loud explosion from outside. It was far enough not to actually hit the building but the shockwave from it shook the room.

"What's going on? Wasn't that from the direction of Eva's place?"

"She's probably just in a bad mood." Haruna started.

"Bad enough for a blast like that?" Negi said.

"Fine, we'll go check it but if she's in a bad mood we're leaving you with her Negi-kun."

* * *

 

_That came from Evangeline's._ Setsuna had just left the dorms while searching the campus for Konoka when the shockwave got to her. She didn't have a clue where Konoka was still but she was also one of the schools guards and the magic didn't feel like Eva's work to her.

She took off towards the Cottage.

Setsuna wasn't the first one to the Cottage; by the time she got there Mana, Takamichi, and a female teacher Setsuna recognized but didn't know were already there. Eva's Cottage was just a slab with charred wood on it. The basement might have survived but nothing above that remained to show what it had been.

It took a minute for Setsuna to realize there were three others there as well. Chachamaru was in the best shape of the three, even missing an arm. She was a robot after all. She was the one explaining what happened. It was hard though because part of her head had been damaged as well in the blast and in the process of recovering the others. Her sentences were badly slurred and at times even interrupted by static.

Eva was in bad shape. She had taken most of the blast head on, according to Chachamaru; the blast could have leveled an area of a mile or two if not for Eva's counter. Doing so meant Eva couldn't avoid what did seep through. According to something Setsuna barely heard, Eva would live, but she had burns across a good deal of her body.

Setsuna's eyes registered the third person, but her mind just froze. Konoka appeared to be sleeping, but while Setsuna was sure, she was alive; she didn't appear to be breathing or anything. Setsuna, her body finally snapping itself awake rushed to Konoka. She still had a pulse and a this distance she was breathing, but just.

"Can't any of you help her?"

The woman spoke up, "Whatever is wrong with her it can't be healed I tried my best but she won't wake up. " Setsuna turned back to Konoka and noticed something. Konoka had ring tied to a string around her neck that Setsuna had ever seen before. It was a simple brass ring, but it held a strange jade stone. Setsuna held it up and words scrawled themselves in the air before her.

_Gates are meant to be opened_  
This one has been shut.  
The price paid.  
but  
Forever Sleep.  
Waking brings the Gatekeepers.  
Waking brings the end.  
Forever Sleep.  
Forever.  
Only love.

The jade stone shattered into a small dust cloud, which blew away in a gust of wind. Setsuna just knelt there holding Konoka.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize it's gotten a bit more complex and less lighthearted the last couple of chapters, there is always a candle in the darkness. It just needs a light.  
> Also, I doubt anyone has noticed because of how I fill it out, but I pretty much keep making the story up as I go, I have certain points I want to get to; I figure how I get to it should be as much an adventure for me as a writer as it is for your guys as readers. Wow, that was just one sentence...


	6. Revelations and Rabbit Holes

The Dorm room was quiet. Setsuna rather liked that her classmates hadn't stayed after Konoka was moved here. What she didn't like was feeling helpless. Eva was in the infirmary and, according to Asuna, still unconscious. Thanks to her vampiric powers, she was recovering far faster than anyone expected. Chachamaru was with Hakase now, who was hard at work fixing her, but she said it could take a few days due to significant damage to internal parts. Asuna had left not long after telling Setsuna this without saying where she was going.

"What can I do?" Setsuna said to the sleeping Konoka. "Whatever it takes to make you OK again, I promise Kono-chan. I'll do it." She was holding Konoka's hand and whispering, "I promise" over and over when the silence around her was broken.

"Anything?" A female voice behind Setsuna said. Setsuna turned and realized the voice hadn't actually come from anyone.

"Who's there?" The voice sounded familiar but she couldn't say why.

"I can't say much, I'm breaking so many rules now that it's not even funny. "

"Who are you?" Setsuna said softer. She had a feeling she could just think it and the voice would hear but just in case.

"You wouldn't believe me if I tried to explain it. Nevertheless, you said you would do anything to save m...Konoka-san didn't you?"

"Of course, Kono-chan is the most important person to me." Setsuna blushed when she realized what she had said, but she wouldn't take it back. She meant it, even if she couldn't tell Konoka.

"Even if it meant you had to break multiple rules and attempt something that is both dangerous to Konoka-san and potentially fatal to yourself, something both ethically questionable and completely against the rules of magic? Even if it meant giving up the way you've lived with her forever?"

Setsuna's mouth clenched. She didn't even know why she was considering this. She didn't even know with whom she was talking. This could very well be the person who attacked Eva.

"I would do anything for Kono-chan, but I don't even know who I'm talking to, or if I'm not just so distraught I'm hearing things. If you really mean to help me, then show yourself. "

"Heh, I was warned it wouldn't be easy to convince you..." There was an audible sigh. "Very well." The air in front of Setsuna swirled as a form of wind magic tossed things in the room about. It formed a vortex and in its midst, a girl appeared. As the wind cleared, Setsuna looked at the newcomer. Her eyes widened slightly when she noticed something about the girl.

"I told you that you wouldn't believe me."

* * *

 

"So what did he say Negi-kun?" Haruna was the first to ask as Negi left the Infirmary.

"The dean says that Evangeline will be OK, but he doesn't expect her to wake up until tomorrow at best. As for anything else, he told me he had the best Magicians available to find her attacker."

"That's it?"

Negi sighed. "He also said that, given the circumstances everyone will be restricted to the dorms until they can be certain the assailant is not still on campus somewhere. Guards are already being assembled. "Negi looked up. "That reminds me, Mana, Master Ku and Kaede; the dean said he needed to talk to you and Setsuna-san as soon as possible. "

"Setsuna is busy, but maybe I can fill her spot." Asuna came walking up with a determined look on her face. "Someone hurt Konoka and I want to make sure they pay for it." She pulled her Pactio card out. "We haven't needed them in a while, but maybe it is time to break 'em out again." A few of the others gathered pulled out cards too.

Negi's sigh was bigger this time. "The dean also wanted me to tell you girls this. Whatever attacked Eva was strong enough that it nearly killed her, and very likely could have if it hadn't held back. Because of this, all of you are just students, and as such should return to your dorm rooms. Asuna might make a case because of her training and abilities but everyone else should just behave."

That brought many sighs and disappointed looks but give the fact the dean specifically told them no, they had little choice for now. Haruna and Kasumi looked ready to try anyways though.

"Alright Negi-kun, for now it probably is best we just play it safe." Haruna's voice was anything but convincing. Nevertheless, they all turned and headed towards the dorms.

* * *

 

_I must be going crazy_. Setsuna said for what must have been the thirtieth time in the last 20 minutes. The girl was gone, having shown Setsuna who she was, she didn't give a name, but Setsuna vaguely thought she knew. Setsuna now stood next to Konoka's bed.

"Kono-chan"...For any other reason or person it would be out of the question, but... "Kono-chan, I promise, I'll save you. "

_The first step is always hard, but no one ever said the rest would be any easier._ The first part of what she had to do would be difficult, but if it could save Kono-chan, it would be worth it.

" _Remember there are three rules." The girl smile and raised a finger._

" _#1. Tell no one about me, not even Konoka-san._

_#2. No matter what, you must not harm anyone unless your own life or Konoka-san's is at stake. Doing so will insure failure and Konoka-san's death._

_#3. No one must find out what you are doing save Konoka-san. It must be done by you alone and you cannot be discovered or you will fail._

_Those points said, I do hope things will be OK."_ She had disappeared before Setsuna could ask what she had meant _._

Setsuna took a deep breath and left the room. _The first step._ She left her sword lying next to Konoka.

* * *

 

"What are those cards exactly?" Konata asked as they walked back to the dorms. "Cause everyone seems to have them and they must be important somehow. " By now only a few of the Mahora girls were still with them. Nodoka spoke up.

"Their called Pactio cards. They bind us with Negi-sensei, think of them as a sort of Magical Artifact that grants us abilities to help him."

"So basically they turn you into magical girls?" Kagami tripped.

"Well, technically yes, though only in a sort of support role. Some of us have been learning to use magic the last few years but it helps to have a lot of magic in you and-"

"So about the cards. What does it take to get one?"

"Well as the name suggests you have to form a Pactio with someone. It's like a contract in a way.

"And how do you do that." Nodoka blushed, which caused Konata to imagine quite a few things. "I think I know." She snickered and whispered something into Nodoka's ear. The result was Nodoka turning a shade of red that was most unhealthy and start stuttering.

"Th-thaa-that's—not" She tried to say. Kasumi took over.

"You have to kiss them. Nothing more or less." _Least not in a provisional one._

The wheels in Konata's mind finally ceasing; Kagami took the chance to ask a question of her own.

"So does that mean that your teacher, your about 13 year old teacher, has kissed all of you?"

The reactions were varied but it was apparent that it was a unanimous yes. _Eg gross_."So anyways, before my little friend here can ask any more questions that would surely make someone faint how about we just not talk about it for now.

"I have a couple more questions first." Konata said and Kagami groaned.

"Shoot." Kasumi said.

"First is does it have to be between a mage and someone? Can it just be someone with magic in them?

"I don't actually know, but it might be possible, Chamo-kun would know. Your other question?

"Does gender matter?" That certainly provoked a response, and stares from everyone nearby.

"Ask Chamo-kun..." Kasumi said as she turned away. "Anyways maybe we _should_ all just take it easy today. You guys can get back to your rooms right? "When they nodded the group split up.

"Why would you ask something like that Konata?"

"Why not? I was just wondering. It's not a big deal.

"It is so a big deal."

"Ohh so it's important to you Kagamin?"

"No, you just don't ask people embarrassing things like that out of nowhere."

"Onee-chan, why is what Kona-chan asked weird."

"I'll tell you later Tsukasa..." Kagami turned and walked down the hall. "Come on it's been a long day and we could use a break besides we need to get some food and stuff. We never did even get lunch. "

* * *

 

With that they began they headed for the co-op and then the twins room. Upon arriving in the room, Konata started the conversation.

"So Kagamin, what do you think we should do?"

"What do you mean what should we do? What can we do?"

I mean everyone else is helping so why not us? "

"Because we're not magical, we're just normal girls."

"So were they before they met Negi-sensei."

"Look Konata, we don't really know anything about what's going on, but it's obvious that it's getting really dangerous. And while everyone may have been normal like us before, that was years ago, they've all had time to get used to it, we don't even know much more about magic than it exists.

"Perhaps Kagami-san is right Konata-san, at least until we understand more about what's going on."

"I don't know Onee-chan, I kinda understand what Kona-chan is saying, it just doesn't seem right that we aren't really helping. There has to be something."

"Tsukasa that's very interesting coming from you, but do you really understand what you're suggesting. Somebody nearly died today. Someone really strong I might add. What chance would we have?"

"Kagamin, we were brought here for a reason, what better reason can you come up with?"

"Konata, real life is not a video game, not everything that happens is a plot device you know."

Konata pouted. "I just wanted to have some fun."

"Perhaps it would be a good idea to ask someone to explain more about this world to us at least. Chamo-san would probably tell us if we asked him." Miyuki had been quite for a while but it seemed like they finally had a chance to learn something about their surroundings.

"You too Miyuki?" Kagami sighed "Fine I don't want to be the only one holding you guys back but were just gonna get some information, not DO anything.

Konata pouted again but there was a glint in the Otaku's eye. She had a plan.

* * *

 

Setsuna calmly walked down the halls towards the dean's office. She was nearly there when she heard someone call her.

"Setsuna what's up?" It was Asuna. "You don't have to worry about the guard duty; the dean said it would be OK if I take your spot."

"Guard duty? Oh." Setsuna smiled for a second.

"So how was she?"

"Sleeping. Look Asuna right now I kinda just need some time to myself OK?"

"Alright, I can understand the feeling, but just don't blame yourself, if Eva couldn't even stop them there's nothing you could have done either."

"Alright." She turned and walked away and Setsuna took a shook her head. _Focus!_ She headed into the dean's office. It was empty. _Thank God._ She walked across it to the other side and opened the door into the dean's private rooms.

The dean's chambers were dark, he was likely at the Infirmary still, but Setsuna hoped that he had left it here. If not she'd have to wait until he went to sleep to get it. Thankfully, for her, she found it resting in a bag on his desk. She was glad no one was around, but all the same, the next part would be rather unpleasant, at least she had been told it would be. She picked up the Gateway and took a deep breath.

_Take it in your hand and say this phrase exactly._ "Severios Pletius Deius. _"_ The world around Setsuna spun, her eyesight started to fade. _No one must know you are doing this."_ If she was found unconscious in the dean's rooms, that would surely qualify being discovered. She rushed to the window and jumped out. The early night air surrounded her as her wings came out. Her vision was still fading, but flying on instinct alone, she pulled up before hitting the ground. She made it about three miles into the forest before darkness took her. Her body slammed into the ground just as a light enveloped her.

* * *

 

"So the theory of it is simple, as long as the there is a contract circle and the two people kiss, there really are no other rules. It was made to be between a Mage and their partner, but so long as the person has at least some magic of their own, it should be possible. In theory at least. "

Chamo had been all but lecturing the girls for half an hour, during which time Konata had shown more interest in learning than Kagami had see her show in years of being around her.

"Is there any way to determine how much magic someone has in them? "

"Konata do you really realize what you are getting yourself into?"

"There are several ways of testing that actually, though they generally only show the potential someone has, not specifically how much they can use without years of training. But there is a simple one we can do that could show whether you have any potential at all, and a vague ballpark value of how much."

"What do we need to do?"

"Well it will take a minute or two for me to set up, but if you really want to know it shouldn't be too hard.

"Are you seriously suggesting that we could be mages?" Kagami was more than a bit exasperated, it was one thing to know magic exists around you, quite another to be getting involved in it yourself.

"Come on Kagami, aren't you just a little curious?"

"Not at all actually, I'd rather stay a simple high school girl thank you. "

"You really don't have any dreams at all do you?"

"What was that?"

* * *

 

"It's ready. I'd ask who wants to go first, but I don't think that's necessary."

Sure enough, Konata was there before Chamo even finished talking.

"So what do we do?"

"I need a drop of your blood." Chamo held out a small needle, He was sitting at the computer he had and there was a strange thing sticking out the side. "Just a drop. It's a good thing for you that Yue and the others asked the same thing a few years ago or I wouldn't even have this thing."

"OK" Without any hesitation, Konata pricked her finger and held it up for Chamo. He swiped the blood off with a weird piece of paper and put it into the device. On screen, a small graph came up. It showed the Magic level of people at any give age of their life.

"Remember, this is just representation of potential, you may never get even close to these levels or you could far surpass them it's just a rough guess."

On it were lines representing four people. Negi, Konoka, Nodoka and Yue. After a moment, a new line with Konata's name started forming. As the computer processed the sample, the line slowly filled out. At first it was little more than Yue or Nodoka, but slowly it started to climb until it was near the same level as Konoka. Chamo, who was by no means expecting this, just stared.

"Wowsa, that's some serious potential you got there, even if you don't get half that you would still be among the strongest Mages in years."

Konata was practically beaming "So now do you want to try Kagami?"

"No not really, but I get the feeling you're going to pester me until I do."

"Can I go next?" Tsukasa said timidly.

"Sure missy step right up." The process was repeated and the machine started reading again. The line formed and while it was by no means quite as staggering, it slowly rose over 50 or so years, until at its peak it was nearly a fourth of Negi's.

"Oh wow, I ever would have guessed, that's Amazing." Tsukasa blushed when Chamo commented on it.

_All right now know it's not right, I mean Tsukasa? A Mage?_

"I'd like to go next if that's OK." Miyuki gave a sample and the machine kicked in again. It showed Miyuki having slightly less potential than Yue.

"Don't you worry there missy, it's no big deal at all."

"Come on Kagamin, we've all done it, the least you can do is try."

"Alright Alright, I'll do it." Kagami sighed and walked over to the computer.

The machine took only a second to process before showing a line that never once climbed or fell. It was a flat line so near the bottom of the graph Chamo actually had to zoom in just to find it.

"See Konata, I told you I'm just a normal girl."

"Aw it's OK Kagami; you might still be able to do something if you set your mind to it."

"Have you been listening to me at all Konata?"

"Of course but your just trying to hide it is all."

"I AM NOT!"

Konata just smiled at her in a way that suggested something. _Irritated._

* * *

 

_Where am I?_ Setsuna stood up or she made the movement to stand up. It was more a movement without physical backing. She was standing, but beneath her, she still saw her own body lying there, surrounded by a faint light. According to the girl, her body would be completely safe until she returned... She certainly hoped that was true because she was lying in the middle of a forest.

_Well I've come this far._ She flew towards the dorms. The girl had been very clear on one thing. _"You are not a ghost; you are more, and less. You will not be dead, but if you do not act quickly, your spirit will dissipate. Do not delay."_

At the thought of disappearing forever, she sped up. Konoka's window was dark as she reached it so flew straight in. She whispered, "I'm back Kono-chan." _I hope this works._ She put her hand on Konoka's forehead and focused. All of her energy and all of what was Setsuna she poured into Konoka. In her hand, a spirit form of the gateway flickered and she disappeared.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the readers who are more Konami than Konosetsu, it's a long story and they'll get their turn too someday. You have my word. For now just try to keep up with my crazy story. I swear if it isn't yet, it will all make sense by the end. See ya all in chapter 7. Surprises for all guaranteed.
> 
> Does anyone have any comments on the pacing of the chapter? It kinda felt rushed in some places to me, was that just me or was it really? I hope I didn't try to fit too much in at one time. I kept trying to find a good stop point but it just never worked out right. I actually have another 750 words that are in chapter 7 that were originally in this chapter...


	7. Wonderland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't rush, and I do check for errors and such I'm just not great at it, I focus too much on story and not enough on technical stuff (I wish I had a proofreader...*Sigh*.) So here we go, down the rabbit hole once again.  
> If you survive my insanity you're sure to find something to like. (I hope) It took a while just due to trying to figure it all out...

_From that point on, you cannot turn back, you will succeed or you will both die._

Setsuna's mind and body jerked awake as her body splashed into the water.

 _It worked._ A part of her mind registered as everything came back to her.

She took only a second to get back to the surface and another few to get to the shore. She sat down next to the little pond and gathered her thoughts for a minute. It took her a second to realize that despite landing in water she wasn't soaking wet. She knew where she was; well she knew where she had been told she would be. Still, this place seemed normal enough, all things considered.

Looking around she reassessed her surroundings. She was currently sitting on a small shoreline near a large lake. It was bordered by a dense forest on three sides. Right now only one thing was really one her mind though. _Kono-chan._

Her mindset changed instantly and she stood up. She gathered up her sword and headed towards the forest behind her, but she stopped for a second. She had no way of knowing where she was going. A part of her trusted her surroundings absolutely. She did not understand why, but it was almost like it was familiar despite being completely unknown. Looking out over the lake, she looked down and almost fell in. _I didn't really expect that..._

* * *

 

Konoka was certain she was going mad. Well, that or she was asleep, but she'd never had a dream like this. It was so real. Of course, that made it even more frightening. She was running through a forest, had been for hours without getting tired. Some _things_ were after her. That was her best definition, they had no from unless they got near her.

Whether it was a dream or not she wasn't about to let those things catch her again. The last time one got to close to her, she swore she had heard Set-chan telling her to go away and never come back. She knew it wasn't real but at the same time for just a second, she felt like crying. Then the creature took on Setsuna's form and.. _Just keep running Konoka, whatever is going on you can figure it out._ She tried to ignore the cut on her arm. She couldn't heal it no matter what she tried. _This really is like a nightmare._

Suddenly she felt a stabbing pain in her head, like something trying to bore its way into her skull. It lasted only an instant. Once it stopped, she felt something new in her mind. Like a link with someone or something far away, miles away. Who or what it was she didn't know, but she could point at it from here. Some part of her knew the presence, knew what it was and why it felt so safe to her, but she couldn't say why. The rest thought it was the first sign of anything besides those things.

She started running towards the new presence with a renewed sense of urgency and energy.

* * *

 

It was hours past dark, yet while Miyuki had long since left to her room, Konata sat on the twin's couch talking to Chamo, seemingly forgetting that she was not in her own room. Kagami would have thrown them both out if Tsukasa weren't with them as well. That her sister was even awake at, she looked at the clock, Jeez _its past 11..._

 _If they don't call this soon I'm kicking them all out..._ " Hey, I'm sure that's interesting and all, but hurry it up. You can talk again tomorrow. I'm taking a bath now, I want you two out," She pointed at Chamo and Konata. "and you ready for bed when I get out got it?" She finished by glaring at Tsukasa.

Konata looked like she wanted to say something, but they all just nodded. Tsukasa and Konata both seemed a little bit upset. Nevertheless, she turned and headed towards their bathroom. She stopped just before going in. She sighed and turned around.

"Try not to rush to fast into things you don't really understand OK, I can't be around to help you all the time Tsukasa so you need to learn, but don't overdo it OK?"

In truth, she _was_ slightly miffed at the fact that she had no actual magical potential, and part of her silently wondered if it was a sort of balance with them being twins. After all, she was far smarter in school than Tsukasa was, but a voice in her head said she'd gladly trade it for... _Gah what the heck am I even thinking, crazy._

"Kagami is cute when she's talking to herself out loud about want to be a mage." She heard Konata's giggle and turned slightly pink in the face.

"I said that out loud?" _What else did I say?_

"No, but the way you've been acting it's all over your face." Konata's smile made Kagami want to hit her. " Besides you just admitted it."

"I did no-..." She had. "I changed my mind. Konata, get out. Take that little rat with you. "

Just as Chamo was about to say he was an Ermine not a rat, Konata scooped him up and whispered to Kagami. "Even if you can't use magic, it doesn't mean you can't be a magical girl Kagami." Her smile made Kagami almost wasn't to hit her for a minute.

_She must mean that Pactio nonsense. Bleh as if._

"In fact, Chamo-san told me about how a full contract was formed."

"Stop right there Konata. I do believe its past time for you to go." The fact that Konata's cheeks had turned pink when saying that made Kagami all the more certain that this Pactio stuff was complete nonsense.

She turned and headed towards the bathroom. Konata said goodbye to a rather confused Tsukasa and headed out, all the while talking to Chamo-san.

"So about the Artifact's you say it's different depending on-" It faded as the door closed behind her and she walked down the hall.

* * *

 

Night passed quickly for everyone in Mahora except its aging dean. It was nearly four before he finally had gotten back to his own rooms. In his tiredness, he nearly failed to notice anything out of the ordinary before going to bed. Just as he was getting ready to go to sleep however, he noticed the drapes of his window were blowing, which they would not do if the window had been closed, which it should be. Getting up and seeing that the window was indeed open, a thought occurred to him. He rushed to where he had kept the Gateway and to his surprise and horror, didn't find it.

_How could someone get in here anyways? Any magic would have been detected especially after the attack. That rules out some but a powerful mage could just have enchanted tools to use to get in. On the other hand..._

Dozens of possibilities went through his head but none would get it back. He rushed out to his main office room. Grabbing the phone, he began calling the Mages among the staff that had any skill in detecting traces of magical use. Even the slightest trail might help.

* * *

 

" _Come on sis wake up." Tsukasa? No way, she can't be up before me. That would be a real miracle..._ "Sis, come on you need to get up already." Slowly Kagami's eyes opened. Sure enough, Tsukasa was up and fully dressed.

"Wha... Why and how are you up so early Tsukasa?"

"Early? Onee-chan it's nearly one in the afternoon, I wasn't sure when you'd wake up."

"Kagami sure is a heavy sleeper." A far too mischievous voice said from Kagami's left. Turning Kagami almost jumped out of her skin. Somehow Konata had found, and was wearing, a pointed mage's hat and a cloak. She was also holding a wand, and then Kagami noticed her sister was too.

_Jesh. I guess there Isn't any way to stop it now either. Well oh well._

Kagami headed for the bathroom and got dressed. Upon coming back out, she noticed Miyuki was there as well as Chamo who was giving the girls instructions _._

"Now it's unlikely anything will happen the first few times you try, but with practice this should become easy. Now repeat after me while waving the wand. _Practe Bigi Nar Aldescet."_

Tsukasa tried it first. "Practice Biggie Nale Aldescet.?" And being Tsukasa butchered the spell in such a way while at the same time flailing the wand that it was amazing that she didn't hurt herself in the confusion.

Konata however, asked Chamo to write the spell down and began mumbling it to herself repeatedly while flicking the wand. Every so often, the end of the wand flickered. When she finally said the spell in a louder voice the end of the wand nearly caught fire as a ball of flame shot out towards Chamo and the table he was standing on. The Impact scared everyone, Chamo most of all.

That was when Kagami became aware of another person in the room. Negi cast a spell that put the fire out and turned to Konata.

"I hadn't expected anyone to actually succeed so quickly at it, but since it appears you are rather gifted, perhaps we should stop there for now until we get someplace... safer to teach you."

There was a significant amount of tension in Negi's voice and it was clear he hadn't expected it at all. It was also apparent that he wasn't saying everything he was thinking. Chamo, on the other hand, was a little more vocal.

"That was amazing, it normally takes weeks or even months for someone to do a fifth of that. Not that I want to be turned into Ermine bacon or anything, but I kinda want to know if that was a fluke or not Aniki."

"Chamo-kun, it's not safe to be throwing actual balls of fire around inside."

"Aniki you can keep us safe, besides it's entirely possible it _was_ a fluke, it can't get to out of control ya know."

Despite Negi's misgivings regarding it, Konata once again tried to cast the spell.

" _Practe Bigi Nar Aldescet!" Nothing._

"See Aniki, it must've been.-"

Suddenly, a ball of fire shot out of Konata's wand again, the delayed reaction caught everyone off guard as it shot right at Tsukasa.

"Tsukasa!" Kagami slammed a shoulder into a frozen Tsukasa knocking her out of the way while at the same time putting a hand up to shield herself.

The ball of fire slammed into her hand. Its color inverted, shifting from fiery red to dark blue in an instant, and then it flew backwards towards Konata. She managed to duck in time as it flew over her head and hit the window, or rather went through it. As it reached the window, it seemed to phase through the window, causing no damage to it as it flew without pause. It flew a few hundred feet outside and dissipated.

"Aniki..."

"Whoa! Kagamin that was so cool how did you do...? Kagami?" Konata stopped mid thought as Kagami collapsed to her knees, breathing heavily. "What's wrong?"

Tsukasa and Miyuki came to help Kagami into a chair. Chamo and Negi just stared, mouths agape.

* * *

 

Asuna had had long days before, in fact early every day of class was long. However, walking alone outside the school, she was truly bored. To be certain she was keeping a watchful eye out for anything suspicious but at the same time, she wasn't really expecting an attack to come. She was wrong.

"What's a brainless monkey like you doing out of the dorms after the dean specifically said everyone was restricted to them?"

A far too familiar and far too infuriating voice reached Asuna's ears.

"I could as you the same thing Blondie." Asuna turned to see Ayaka walking up to her. The Eternal class Rep, Ayaka had a crush on their teacher that nothing Asuna could figure on explained. At first Asuna had thought it was just her trying to make up for her own lost brother, but the sheer Shota-ness of her over these last years really scared Asuna. On top of that, she seemed to get more prissy and cocky by the year.

"Anyhow, I happen to have orders from the dean. You on the other hand should go back to your cage or room or whatever it is you call that place. Don't you need to take care of Konoka-san anyways? "

Her voice had started out normal but had gotten serious as she asked the question.

"Actually I have orders from the dean as well Ayaka. Setsuna was taking care of Konoka most of yesterday, and while she wasn't there when I left this morning I can only assume she would be now."

_Can hardly separate those two anyways..._

* * *

 

"You shouldn't be here Ojou-sama." The sneer on Setsuna's face was in complete contrast to Konoka's memories.

"Really Konoka you are totally useless." Asuna's eyes seemed to glare murder.

"Konoka-san really shouldn't be so stupid." Even Negi seemed evil..

"SHUT UP, YOU ARE NOT MY FRIENDS." She had no idea what was going on, but her friends would never say stuff like that ever, certainly not looking like they wanted to hurt her. _But it seems so real_. Slowly she was starting to have a hard time telling whether it _was_ real or just a dream. She glared at them and a wand appeared from nowhere in her hands. Before she had time to do anything however.

"Leave Ojou-sama alone!" Konoka felt a rush of air fly by her and feathers filled her vision. At the same time, the presence she had been seeking filled her mind.

"Set-chan?" Setsuna's voice was hers but everything else about her was...different. Her hair was its normal style but not as dark as usual in fact it was nearly white. Her skin was far paler than Konoka remembered. Still Konoka could only think of one word for her. _Beautiful._

"I'm here now Kono-chan so don't worry." _Now I know I'm dreaming...I need to lay off the sweets._

Setsuna turned away and focused on the three before her. They were shifting in appearance. As they turned into their formless states, Setsuna drew her sword, at which point she realized her sword had appeared somehow.

Konoka watched as she rushed at the creatures and dispelled them with an attack. _That does seem like Set-chan, but it's just too weird..._ Setsuna turned to Konoka.

Setsuna caught sight of Konoka's arm and proceeded to freak out. "Ojou-sama your hurt!"

"It's just a scratch I'll be OK, but what's going on? Are you really Set-chan?"

"Of course I'm me Ojou-sama, who else would I be?"

"It's Kono-chan. It's my dream so you have to call me Kono-chan got it?"

"Ojou-sama, this isn't a dream."

Konoka pouted. "It's important to me." _Why did Set-chan seem surprised by that response?_

Setsuna blushed but nodded. "Anyways.. Kono-chan we need to get out of here."

"So then where exactly is here anyways Set-chan?"

"... This could take a minute or two to explain, if I even can explain it, so just try to bear with me. First off, do you remember the last day or so?"

Konoka suddenly had two sets of images overlapping in her head. In one, she remembered talking to Eva and being really upset about something, as upset as she could ever remember being, but what she had been upset about was covered in fog. In the other, she swore she was fighting Ku Fei, Mana and Kaede. She was sure that couldn't be her, if only because she was certain she couldn't do that. _Must all just be a dream after all._

"It's all kind of hazy Set-chan, I don't really.." An image from a hallway played though her minds from two perspectives and her knees gave out. Setsuna caught her before she reached the ground. The intense emotions of recalling that memory in such a way drove her into unconsciousness. Just before she blacked out, she thought she heard Setsuna say something.

"Kono-chan I'm here, so it'll be OK, don't leave me. Please."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to like leaving off with these moments don't I? If Setsuna and Konoka's Reunion seems a bit too... calm and relaxed at first just remember: one is just glad to see the other and the other still isn't entirely sure she's even awake, never mind not remembering much.
> 
> Hope it wasn't entirely too confusing. Part of it kinda has to be just because the girls themselves are completely lost and confused so why should it be different for anyone else?
> 
> That said I hope you knew what was going even if you don't quite understand it. Also the Ayaka-Asuna.. I just wanted to add a bit of extra fun. Though it's not entirely random mwhaha.

**Author's Note:**

> End Notes: I know I didn't exactly merge the two yet, but it will be done at some point, I just wanted to build things up a little more. If you're that eager for it though: breathe...I also realize I might seem to be moving slow to some, but it's just how I write. Enjoy tearing it apart ^_-.


End file.
